In Master Chi’s social circle, we have an unspoken tradition: whenever summer or winter hits back home, a few close friends and a wider group of companions will all fly overseas together — to decompress, to simply live.
Every year, from August through October and again from January through February, those are our collective travel windows.
Calling it pure decompression isn’t entirely accurate, because we always arrange for capable hands to take over our work affairs — while still managing things remotely from afar.
The reason I’m telling you this isn’t to flaunt wealth. It’s more to help you understand why a group of people who have done reasonably well for themselves have embraced this lifestyle — because it is genuinely, deeply worthwhile.
Yes, in the grand arc of a life, two or three months of ease won’t set you back one bit. In fact, those stretches can serve as the defining stroke at key turning points along the way.
Because you finally have a stretch of time that is truly your own — to experience and deeply feel what life itself actually is.
More importantly, many of the most consequential decisions in life require you to think them through — to sit with them long enough that clarity emerges.
And this kind of environment — completely removed from the noise and chaos of your career back home — gives you the mental space to truly untangle what matters.
Most ordinary people will never feel this deeply. But once you’ve built something of scale, you’ll understand: the most significant decisions require time to penetrate, to turn over in your mind, before you can finally commit.
And both time and space are essential ingredients in that process.
This is also, in part, why the wealthy tend to keep getting wealthier. Many ordinary people, weighed down by work pressure and daily obligations, simply don’t have much time for genuine thinking — let alone uninterrupted solitude for quiet reflection.
For us, on the other hand, an important decision might warrant an entire week or two of deliberation — talking it through with the people around us: lawyers, investors, accountants, and a range of trusted connections.
Naturally, this means our quality of decision-making far exceeds what most people can access.
Remember: in the span of a human life, rising swiftly or turning the tide against all odds usually comes down to just one or two decisions made right.
Some people compound their mistakes. Others seem to never make them.
But none of that is what Master Chi wants to explore today.
What I want to share today is actually remarkably simple: What are you doing with this life of yours? All this relentless effort — who is it really for?
And there’s another question that cuts even deeper: In your entire lifetime — who actually, genuinely cares about you?
That question is one that everyone in our circle has sat with, deeply, at one point or another.
Especially when you’ve set your career and its endless demands aside, when you’re in a completely peaceful setting, watching your whole family together — content, laughing, at ease.
That kind of reflection rises up on its own, from somewhere real inside you.
And the answer it leads to is always the same: Only yourself and your family deserve your full devotion.
Sadly, many hard-charging white-collar workers and middle-class strivers rarely get to reach this kind of reflection. Setting everything else aside — just the simple experience of the whole family being at ease together, without the weight of financial stress, genuinely enjoying one another — that alone feels like a luxury to them.
To speak honestly: beyond Master Chi himself, the few friends in my circle who play in capital and industry — when they talk about the people working under them, there’s sometimes a look of genuine sympathy.
“Tell me — what are they grinding this hard for?”
More than once, after saying that, these same capitalists catch themselves and almost laugh at their own naivety. Because — obviously — their people are grinding because they themselves filled their heads with the idea that hustle is the only path to winning.
On this point, you must understand something clearly: you may carry the title of “employee,” but in the eyes of a business, you are a consumable — a production unit that happens to walk on two legs.
The moment your usefulness fades, you become a liability. And I have yet to encounter a single company, anywhere in the world, that keeps a non-producing unit on the books out of sentiment.
They will not care about you. Not remotely. And don’t take it personally — because one day, if you build something of your own, the same pressures and realities will force your hand just as ruthlessly. Otherwise, everyone goes hungry.
I’m not defending capital. I’m just telling you what’s true.
And precisely because that’s true — you must care about yourself all the more.
Of course, Master Chi knows this from lived experience: destiny does require genuine, real effort before it offers anything back. That’s why I’ve always tried to write honestly — sharing my own perspective and hard-won understanding, hoping to spare you a few unnecessary detours.
So that you have more time to devote to yourself.
If today’s piece needs to be distilled into a single point, here is what Master Chi wants you to hear:
For the sake of career, wealth, and ambition — the blood and sweat we pour in is a perfectly natural price to pay.
But whether that effort is driven by the hunger for personal achievement or the desire to give your family a good life — all of it rests on one irreducible foundation: you, still alive and still well.
To a company, you are a small component. The larger the company, the smaller your significance within it.
But to your family, you are the pillar. You are always the irreplaceable one.
You should know which of these weighs more.
And in this world, there will always be those foolish enough to be used — to sacrifice themselves for someone else’s gain — while quietly losing sight of what belongs to themselves and those they love.
Never, ever, ever forget: in this world, outside of the people who love you, no one will spontaneously look out for your interests — let alone your safety and wellbeing.
Outside of the people who love you, no one will pause — not even for half a second — over whether you thrive or suffer, live or die.
Yet many people remain shackled to the promises and visions painted for them by others. People like that will always exist. Perhaps they are driven by weakness, or by blind conformity — but they are destined to be spent and discarded. That is an outcome worse than cattle or livestock.
But not you. You cannot afford to fall for it — to become cannon fodder, a disposable piece in someone else’s machinery.
Master Chi hopes you live, always, for yourself and for those who love you. And that you live well.
Only from that foundation does it make sense to talk about the choices and trade-offs that await you in life — because only while you are here does any of it mean anything at all.