Some things I’ve witnessed lately have weighed on me.
So I want to offer a few words of honest counsel to the brothers and sisters who’ve come from the countryside, county towns, small cities, and other such places.
First: the vast majority of ordinary people who come from small towns are in no way inferior to their big-city peers. They’re just as sharp, just as naturally gifted.
The problem is that traditional Confucian education runs too deep in these places. So you either get raised by mediocre parents who beat the independence out of you — producing a meek, naive, long-suffering kid who can’t make a single decision for himself — or you get neglected entirely and drift into becoming a directionless street kid who doesn’t care about anything and knows even less.
And no matter which path you walked growing up — regardless of whether you were a good student or a poor one — if you come from a small place, you will inevitably take a brutal beating from the world somewhere between the ages of 16 and 25.
Only after that beating will you finally understand: good lord — the education and values I was raised on are nothing but a collection of peasant thinking that’s thirty years out of date?!
And my parents didn’t actually understand education at all — they never gave me any genuinely useful knowledge to carry forward, no real wisdom born of practical experience?!
It is in that moment that the small-town version of you finally begins to truly be reborn — as if entering a second life.
Whether you emerge from that moment with a profound awakening or simply give up on yourself entirely — that’s a matter of chance and fate. Unfortunately, the latter is far more common.
The truth is, the life pattern (格局) of this era is quite clear. For an ordinary person from a small place with nothing to their name, there are really only two viable paths to finding solid footing in this world.
The first: after your awakening, seize your precious youth while you still have it. Learn a relevant, in-demand skill. Make yourself someone a big city will keep. Once you’ve secured your footing there, upgrade your understanding — learn how people really operate, how the game of society actually works — and keep leveling yourself up from there.
The second: if your parents actually have the connections to get you positioned within the local network back home — the small-town circle where people divide up the pie — then stop trying to conquer the big city. Turn around and go back. Embrace a grounded, street-smart way of living, and enjoy a comfortable material life, even if it’s never going to be glamorous or cutting-edge.
Of course, if you pushed me, I could point to a third, fourth, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth path — and countless more possibilities.
But those are truly exceptional cases. And beyond sheer, almost manic self-driven effort, they also require the right moment in history and an unpredictable streak of heaven-blessed fortune.
Many of my readers have also come from small places. Through their own efforts, they turned their lives around — breaking free from the shackles and pulls of their families of origin — and eventually arrived at the life they’d always dreamed of.
In the process of reading their destiny charts and analyzing their life patterns, I’ve also learned a great deal from them.
At some point, I distilled it all down and arrived at this: a family that has been poor and obedient for generations upon generations cannot realistically be an asset in your life. Even if your parents gave you enough love and care, they are, in the end, more likely to weigh you down than lift you up.
This is not to say they are bad people. Nor is it a suggestion to sever the ties of blood and family. It’s about seeing reality clearly: if you want to climb higher, if you want a life equal to or better than those around you —
Then you can only rely on yourself.
Many young people from villages and county towns carry a deep-seated resentment — resentment toward their birth, their parents, the times, society itself. And they try to channel that resentment into fuel.
But that resentment, at best, carries them smoothly for five or six years. After that, it runs dry.
Because resentment is a dark negative energy — it ultimately turns back on you and destroys the relationships and Chi fortune (气运) you’ve built around you.
The truth is, for an ordinary person from a small place to move upward, what they need in their heart is neither a vicious resentment nor a self-deceiving sense of righteous indignation — but a calm, grounded acceptance.
To accept, with peace, that you have no foundation, no background, no wealth, no support — and no particular advantage of any kind.
The only thing you have is that particular vitality unique to small-town people — a courage born precisely from having nothing, and therefore fearing nothing.
Then, bit by bit, face the critical questions honestly: life, wealth, marriage.
Use honest, unguarded sincerity to overcome each problem, one step at a time. Let yourself evolve, step by step, and ultimately achieve a complete transformation — a shedding of the old self, an emergence into something entirely new.
There is no other way.
Whenever I meet a reader who comes from a small place, and they sincerely ask me about their destiny and their path in life, I find a way to share what I’ve said here — each time in words suited to that person.
Some readers genuinely don’t understand it — and I’ve done my part.
But the vast majority do understand. And because of it, their path in life has gradually become better and better — perhaps not reaching great wealth and glory, but achieving a significant leap of several steps upward.
That brings me genuine comfort.
As for you — let fate decide.