写在30岁到来之际On Turning 30

The full text runs to roughly 13,000 characters; give yourself at least fifteen minutes.

01 Looking Back

At twenty-three, what I told myself was this: for the past few years I'd been too fixated on being cool, being smart, being interesting, and I took a lot of wrong turns before I was willing to admit that I'm actually a dull, unglamorous fool. Better to leave the being-interesting to the people who are genuinely interesting, and let my job be to stand in the audience and applaud, sincerely. Here's hoping the new year could be about being real, being kind, being independent.

At twenty-four, what I told myself was: pay more attention to what's essential, less to the noise; enjoy things to the full, look back less, and don't let the edges get sanded off too fast.

At twenty-five, what I said to myself was: Be sharp, be open.

At twenty-six: Be patient, be brave, be constant.

At twenty-seven: In the year ahead, be brave and unafraid.

At twenty-eight: May there be fewer thorns in life and more open road. Live fully, live free, live with quality.

At twenty-nine: There's no model answer to life, so I might as well write my own story however I please.

At thirty, what I say to myself is simply: may this life be lived to the full.

Looking back on this year, I'll give myself an 85.

02 On Standing on Your Own at Thirty: Aging is a fact of life. Old is a state of mind.

Lately I've gone back to twenty-seven-year-old Zhang Yiming and to Teacher Zhang's three paradoxes of life — every rereading turns up something new:

• At sixteen to eighteen, knowing nothing about any discipline or field of knowledge, you're asked to choose your major; at twenty-two to twenty-five, with no concept of how the business world actually works, you're asked to choose a career direction; at twenty-five to twenty-eight, only half-understanding yourself and human relationships, you're asked to settle on a lifelong partner. Put that way, things going wrong in a life is a fairly high-probability event.
• Zhang Yiming at twenty-seven: I'm nearly thirty, and these past few years I've started relearning — catching up on — the things I should have learned as a teenager: how to read, how to understand myself, how to communicate with people, how to manage my time, how to take other people's opinions the right way, how to motivate myself, how to write, how to keep exercising, how to be patient.

By thirty, it seems you have to face a lot of concrete problems in life head-on, with no way to just "wing it" past them the way you used to; and yet it feels like you don't quite have the strength to build a clear enough set of values to sort those problems out — and that's when the sense of powerlessness sets in.

But in certain moments you also notice: the keyword for thirty might be clarity. You start to understand the choices of grown-ups who treasure their time more: compared with when you were young, there's a lot less looking-around curiosity, which gives way to a more careful, more ardent pursuit of the people and things you're truly curious about.

I've realized, and accepted, that even at thirty I'm still a child in certain ways, still deeply dishonest with myself in places — I'm trying hard to face that, and at the same time trying not to beat myself up too much over it.

What's the biggest change between before thirty and at thirty? I think it's more psychological, a matter of mindset: before, I was more stubborn, more black-and-white, always wanting to settle everything in a single decisive stroke. Now I feel life is actually rich and varied, and taking it slow is fine too.

For my part, all these years, I've been learning to know myself better.

It's still the same line: to acknowledge, face, accept, embrace, and like this not-so-great self, from the bottom of my heart and of my own accord, has always been one of the assignments.

I consider myself a person of rational ambition; I'm not, by nature, an especially aggressive one. Plenty of people around me are very much "a cut above," but an A-minus or even a B-plus life is enough for me. To become an A-plus person at the very tip of the pyramid takes not just the fortune of your era and your own luck, but a considerable price paid on top of that.

For me, I weigh joy and experience very heavily, and I'm willing to concede that portion — success — to protect those feelings. So A-minus and B-plus are just fine.

If I had to give my self of ten years ago and my self of ten years from now a single line, or a single word, I'd choose: courage, and wisdom.

Ten years ago, at twenty, I'd probably want to give that self a bit more courage — even though he was already very brave — but looking back: he wasn't brave enough, or, to put it another way, not confident enough. Back then I still wanted certainty more than anything, so I never truly opened myself up. Courage isn't necessarily about trying more things; it's also about being able to not do some of them.

Ten years from now, at forty, I hope I'll be wiser. I should have a family by then, maybe children. Life will be more complicated — I'll no longer be a solo traveler; walking alone will have become walking with a group. I hope that by then I won't be setting any goals at all, just living so my life gets to take in all sorts of different scenery.

I often see people ask: one day I feel I ought to step off the track and face the open wilderness — when is the best time?

I think there's no such thing as a best time; any time works. Whenever you find you want to jump off the track, that's the best time. The greatest flaw in the world is uncertainty, and the only constant is change itself.

Many people probably don't dare face what they actually want; they say they need a very solid financial footing, need to feel secure in a whole lot of ways. But that security and that fear are both just feelings — they aren't a real, objective thing.

There might be a beggar lying in the street who feels utterly safe, and there might be you, sitting in the CBD of a glittering metropolis, feeling utterly unsafe inside. So more often than not, what I need to face is the fear inside my own heart.

Choices aren't good or bad; they're just a stage you have to pass through on your path of growth. So these days I mostly don't judge or grade other people's choices, because I know that, in the moment, they've already made the best choice they could.

A lot of people, at thirty or thirty-five, worry that they'll amount to nothing in this life. What I'd say is: first, you may have set yourself unreasonable expectations — thinking that because you graduated from a top school and grind away at a big company, things ought to go a certain way. But fundamentally, you don't own any means of production. So you might as well put your ego away sooner rather than later.

These past few years I've felt more and more that our work — the things we make — is the main way we connect to this world. I hope everyone can create something in the year ahead, even something very small.

I once read a column piece: "The Age at Which Scientists, Inventors, Entrepreneurs, Composers, Novelists, and Film Directors Produce Their Best Work."

• Conclusion 1: Across every field, the average age of a breakthrough is roughly forty — but on average these people had already been working in their field for ten to twenty years beforehand.
• Conclusion 2: At least in resource-heavy fields like scientific research and film, principal investigators and directors are getting older and older.

So life is still full of hope. Living healthily and happily, plus persistence, matters most. Keep going!

Most moments of our lives are even faster, more repetitive, more shallow, more out of our control and more meaningless than a short video — nothing much sticks. But when you're reading, learning, exercising, traveling, or creating, time feels stretched out and memory feels enriched.

Part of it is the pain that deliberate practice brings; part of it is the flow of investment and feedback; and part of it is that the pace is under your control, rather than being dragged forward by someone else's progress bar.

Once I realized that different activities in the same stretch of time leave completely different memories and information, and that your sensitivity to time and your control over it depend on the medium you're engaging with, I came to a deeper understanding of what "wasting time" actually means.

After all, what defines us is never what we consume, but what we create.

Finally: a youthful spirit, courage, and drive are all as precious as gold. Don't waste them on brute force, and don't squander them. Guard them carefully — that, too, is a kind of responsibility.

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03 On Life and Living: We're alive to have a good time, not to collect a trophy

A recent, deeply felt lesson: spend 90% of your time solving the 10% that's important, and 90% of your thinking finding the most crucial 10% within that important part.

The strange thing careers and love have in common is that trying harder doesn't necessarily lead to a better result.

I've gradually come to see that the formula for a good outcome is probably: making the right choice ✕ 70% effort ➕ the right frame of mind, in which you give and then forget you gave ✕ not caring too much about a perfect score = Ready Player One.

Reading through The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, the core point he keeps making is that the value of effort is overrated; what we should really be improving is judgment. If your judgment is off, the effort is wasted. If your judgment is accurate enough, you can spare yourself a lot of unnecessary effort. Play a stupid game and, no matter how hard you try, you'll only win a stupid prize.

Don't spend all day idly chatting with people. You're the one chopping wood; they're the one grazing sheep. You keep them company all day nattering — their sheep are full, and where's your firewood?

Life isn't a game about satisfying other people; it's a game about satisfying yourself. Think about it. Your relationship with others is temporary, but your relationship with yourself is for life. Other people's opinions of you, and the things you can't control, don't matter — but what you think of yourself matters a hundred times more.

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You have to keep getting to know yourself — know your game: to understand, through and through, from beginning to end, that "you are the most precious thing." This preciousness isn't the arrogant kind that thinks you're superior to others; it's a preciousness rooted in equality — a cherishing of your own wit and ability, of your own ideas and time, of your own emotions and experiences, a reverence for your own life. It means being willing to walk through a lot of dust and static, refusing to buy safety through pleasing others and going along with the crowd, still willing to cross mountains and rivers, and, even when the road is sometimes lonely, to keep seeking — and to seek only — the people and things that are equally cherishing and equally precious. This clear-eyed conviction helps a person sweep away all hesitation and inner friction, and, of course, blows away all the world's dross and its lighter specks of dust.

Life is full of things like economics' impossible trinity, or "pick two of four": family, work, friends, health — if you want "success" you have to give one up, and if you want to be especially successful you have to give up two. Always remember that a rocket has to keep shedding parts to fly farther. So only when you're truly clear about what you want, and what you don't, can you play this game of life well.

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The more time-sensitive a person's choices and actions are, the shorter the time they take effect; conversely, the things that are supposedly "not time-sensitive" are actually the ones that "will keep working for you for the rest of your life."

A person's vitality shows up in some very simple places: being able to eat with a big appetite, sleep soundly, move around lively and springy, dare to express your body in daily life, love a joke and a bit of banter, look people in the eye when you talk to them... They're all things that sound simple when you say them, but plain vitality is exactly what's so magnetic.

When you make things of all kinds — keeping up your exercise, writing, taking good photos, recording a podcast, letting some people keep hearing your thoughts and your voice — you're increasing the odds that "something unexpectedly good" happens. When your work gets out into the world, you might run into kindred spirits, or one day be heard by someone important, and they might bring you a new perspective, a new feeling, a new opportunity — and maybe, by some happy chance, you open the door to a whole new world.

Observe the people who are truly happy, and you'll find they aren't just sitting there feeling content. They make things happen. They pursue new understanding, seek new accomplishments, and keep a good hold on their own thoughts and emotions.

Reaching middle age, you slowly start to see things clearly. Facing your career, your life, making money, your relationships, your health, facing birth, aging, sickness, and death — you still need to loosen up a little, and travel light instead of loading yourself down with the pressures of survival, comparison, dignity, your parents' will, the honor and shame of the family. Approach it with the spirit of playing in the world, go with the grain of things, play the game well, feel it well, experience it well; set a red line and a bottom line, and above that bottom line, play happily.

Bravely try the things beyond the edge of your ability, beyond the edge of your understanding. This one life is a gift handed to you by heaven. Thinking about it this way, your state of mind improves a lot; a lot of the inner pressure and fear dissolves, and you dare to act, and you can accept failure, and you're no longer so driven to chase perfection.

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance has a line in it I find especially interesting: he says don't rush what you do — if you're in a great rush to get something done, it means you don't like doing it and you want to finish it fast so you can move on to something else.

So: Live with values, not results — live by your values, not by outcomes.

I've read some year-end reviews and 2024 plans — but when we do things, are we really enjoying our own lives? A review or a wish that doesn't square with your values is, in fact, heading in the exact opposite direction of where you meant to go. If I lived every single day fully by my values, it seems it wouldn't much matter how many books I read a year.

Don't build your life on numbers: how many books I read this month or this year, how many films I watched, how many courses I took, how many days I exercised. Sure, those things got done — but after doing them, do we feel we're living better? Are we any closer to the life we ideally want?

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One important takeaway from last year: the word "frequent" matters enormously.

• Any work you do frequently is worth drawing a flowchart for — to optimize and simplify the process — and worth a checklist, so you can measure how well you're doing against it.
• Any tool you use frequently is worth writing a guide for, so you master it and boost your efficiency.
• Any frequent habit of living or of leisure is worth reflecting on: is it necessary, and what value does it bring?
• Any person you deal with frequently is worth keeping a profile on, and adding notes to over time.
• Any environment you frequent — bedroom, study, desk, office — is worth decluttering, to cut down on unnecessary distraction.
• Any shopping platform you use frequently is worth keeping a regular-purchase list for, and checking periodically, so you don't have to figure out from scratch each time what to buy and which brand.

The line I used to want on my epitaph was "This person lived life on their own terms." Asked again today, I've decided to change it to "He savored every moment of his life."

A whole life may be one long farewell to those beautiful dreams, noble beliefs, sincere loves, loyal friendships, absolute reason, and perfect truths.

04 On Work: A busy person is a resource; an idle person is themselves again

Looking back, the me in his early twenties surely could never have imagined that the field I chose to step into would turn out to be this vast. Once the long-term, testable goals are set clearly, every boring and mediocre day can be converted into the nutrients you ultimately need: the ability to crush any problem, resilience, communication and collaboration, a results orientation, and the quiet accumulation across countless new domains — all of it can be converted into productivity that has real value in the long run of your work.

Only someone who knows where they're going won't get off partway. I can already picture what the high tower I ultimately want to reach looks like — I can't pretend I've never seen it. It's just that I hope, in the process of becoming something cool, and in the process of accepting the boring and mediocre daily grind, I can walk alongside more of you.

The act of going to work is fairly simple in itself: just deliver staged results. One of the hardest things in the workplace is having to grapple with idiots — and grappling with idiots isn't the delightful kind of contest, because an idiot can take a dump in public and fling it at you, while you have to stay dignified.

I've noticed a big problem in the workplace today: a lot of young people lose interest in their work far too early. They won't take the work in front of them seriously — muddling through, going through the motions. They might say, "let's solve such-and-such problem," and then there's no and-then. Even though I feel this deeply and agree with it wholeheartedly — that you obviously can't be a wage worker forever — working a job does have its upsides, and it's very likely the right fit for 95% of ordinary people.

Every company that survives in this world does so for some reason — whether it's the business, the process, the materials, or a leader who can spin a good story — and all of it is worth learning from.

I've written this many times before: we should work, but not just clock in.

Work has its meaning, but that meaning is something we have to dig out ourselves, and every role exists for a reason too. If we feel a role's meaning has been fully mined out, that means we should be promoted or move on; and if the meaning of the entire chain has been mined out, then we can choose to become an executive or start our own thing — all of these are life choices. But if you have no clear goal of starting a business or a side project and still hate your job, that's meaningless, because you've got no goal at all.

When you make decisions in your career, don't think that once you decide, you have to do it for the rest of your life. This isn't marriage either (and under the modern institution of marriage, even marriage rarely lasts a lifetime). So don't think that your effort and your decisions all have to be settled in a single decisive stroke. Whether or not the decision itself lasts a lifetime, who knows — but that way of thinking will hurt you for a lifetime.

There are a lot of things in life that call for fast decisions, but there are roughly a few principles. When you're young, go by the principle of growth: whatever helps you grow, do more of it. In middle age, go by the principle of variety, adding layers to your life so you're not easily defeated. In old age, go by the principle of reducing suffering: do whatever causes the least grief, to give life its final dignity.

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So which matters more in the end — effort or choice? When you have a choice, choice matters more; when you have no choice, that's when effort matters. But fundamentally, effort exists precisely to give yourself more choices.

Right now, many people have been turned into tools without even realizing it — a highly rational and crazed social process. Being instrumentalized isn't bounded by whether you work for someone else; working for yourself, you can be instrumentalized by society just the same, turned into one cell in a battery pack, "working hard, working relentlessly." So it's very important to have an independent and, as far as possible, complete character — and this has no strong correlation with how much education you have, how much you know, or how much money you make. This is what makes a human being the "spirit" of all things; it's the last foundation on which a person makes their stand.

The reason so many strivers from small towns and big towns get "instrumentalized" is that, back then, many of their dreams went like this: do the exercises → grind up the credentials → graduate and find a high-paying job → buy a house and a car to grow your assets → use your economic conditions and your possessions to trade down for a pretty girl → become a landlord in Beijing, Shanghai, or Shenzhen. Plus the belief that graduating from a top school meant you'd got hold of the means of production (when in fact you had nothing).

In reality, for most professional exercise-grinders, the dream chain now breaks right at the link from high credentials → high-paying job. If pursuing a top credential was only ever about getting into a big company for a big salary, then running into today's environment and having an existential crisis is entirely to be expected.

To borrow Bourdieu's framing, in modern society a credential exists more as a form of "cultural capital," and between it and financial capital there needs to be a "bridge" — and most specialized knowledge struggles to form an efficient "bridge."

On this phenomenon, the best answer I can currently come up with is: join a startup as early as possible. Keywords: "as early as possible" and "join a startup."

The harbor is the safest place, but that isn't what ships are built for.

"As early as possible" is because it buys you time, adds to your probability, raises your win rate. Startups failing is the norm, so join early, die early, switch early. If you start at twenty-five and do a new one every two years, then by thirty-five you could, in theory, have joined five, at least three or more. Because of the sheer number, you raise your odds of success, and if a company does succeed, as an early employee you'll basically end up with a decent chunk of income, and a very good growth curve too.

If all the startups you join fail, don't panic either. To "join a startup" you have to understand: you're not there to work for the boss, you're working for yourself.

While working at a startup, you have to sharpen your view of the whole picture. Whether you do engineering or operations, you should learn the boss's way of thinking, the boss's perspective, and help the boss run the company well and avoid failure — because only successful experience is likely to be worth referencing and passing on. So it isn't pure wage work; it's constantly testing your own judgment.

If it succeeds, everybody's happy. If your luck's bad, that's fine too — at least you've learned a few ways to die, which you can at least avoid next time, and you can still raise your success rate. Nobody can stay in a big company forever. And nobody can keep succeeding forever.

Never simply work for your boss. Always be working at least "two jobs" at once: one for the boss, one for yourself. If the boss is unreliable, fire the boss and go somewhere else.

If you don't realize this, then by thirty-five the company will remind you that you no longer have an edge — and if you only then start a side project, you'll find that apart from your day job (code, design, operations) you can't do anything else, and learning it now costs even more. And here's the kicker: at that point, for a startup, on a cost-effectiveness basis, you're no longer the optimal choice.

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Doing career planning is actually the same as starting a company. After a company is founded, it has to figure out its mission as early as possible — who the company serves — and if it can't figure that out, the company is destined to go bankrupt. It's the same for a person: figure out your mission as fast as you can, what kind of person you actually want to become. If you don't, you drift along in a fog and get weeded out by society in the end. On the matter of your "personal mission," no one can help you — read more (biographies, especially) and maybe it'll help.

I once chatted with a friend in engineering at a big company, and he said: "I make more than eighty thousand a month; my PhD classmate from university makes eight thousand a month at an aerospace-tech outfit. The two of us develop basically the same kind of program, the work is roughly the same; at a private enterprise I earn far more than he does, but I just feel like I'm working for the capitalists, listless every day, while he works with real drive.

What stuck with me most was that he pointed to the cleaning lady sweeping downstairs and said: look at that lady — my work isn't even as valuable as hers; at least she gets this street clean."

If the ultimate drive behind your work is only to change your personal fate and leap up a class, sooner or later you'll burn out. Even at eighty thousand a month, even eight hundred thousand a month, you'll burn out. Why does his classmate, doing the same thing at eight thousand a month, have so much drive? Because his work is connected to a larger meaning, linked to a larger narrative — the development of the country. It sounds hollow and grandiose put that way, but it isn't entirely so.

When people do things, they ultimately need to see a sense of meaning; if they can't see it for a long time, they lose the motivation to act. Money can solve short-term anxiety; only a sense of accomplishment can solve long-term anxiety.

Wealth depends on a few big highs; happiness depends on many small ones. Happiness isn't a reward dangling at the finish line — it's just a light that flickers into view here and there along the road. Ambition and money can't, and won't, drive me forever, but love can.

But you don't necessarily have to start a company either. A lot of friends carry misconceptions and fixations about it: "If I'm going to start a company, I'll work a few years first"; "Can an undergraduate really start a company straight away?"; "I do my start-up inside a big company, so I don't have to bear the risk, and I can freeload off the boss." The mindset and skill set that entrepreneurship and wage work require are different; a born wage worker isn't necessarily suited to entrepreneurship, and if you want to learn to start a company, the fastest way is to just start one — there's no such thing as "work first, then start a company." Some people just aren't cut out for wage work, but their skill tree and their mindset are ready for entrepreneurship. These are two different things, so seeing clearly which one suits you matters a lot.

At the same time, do things that compound. With work, think about where this job ends up. If the job makes you better and better, it's a compounding job; if the job ends with you being worth less the older you get, it's a depleting job.

Choosing a job with a compounding effect means taking your long-term career development and personal growth into account, not just the immediate gain.

Among the various abilities a life requires, whichever one is failing, train that one first. Once they're all passing, whichever one you like most, train that one first.

Time is regarded as life's ultimate currency. To manage our brief time on this earth effectively is like managing any scarce resource: you must use it wisely, and give priority to the things that matter most. As the years pile up, we more easily examine things the way Marcus Aurelius did: "When you are distressed by something external, the pain is not due to the thing itself but to your judgment about it — and this you have the power to wipe out at any moment."

Take up more work that's genuinely valuable: scientists, engineers, doctors, teachers, artists — these are value-creating professions; most other professions are basically parasitic.

I hope every young person can find value-creating work and find the meaning in their work — the meaning of work is often the meaning of life, too.

05 On Reading and Treating People: People are people's demand, and people are also people's supply

Man is the measure of all things, and also the main source of happiness and joy, of worry and vexation.

Almost every good turn begins with one action: leaving a bad relationship.

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What is a healthy relationship? I thought about it for a long time, and I think it comes down to a few conditions: respect, sincerity, mutual care.

Respect is the precondition. Respect, put simply, is treating each other as equal human beings, not treating the other person as a tool or a means. Never dealing with someone, no overlap at all, not even interacting on their social feed, and then only wanting to freeload their stuff, their advice, their time — that's all a display of disrespect.

Then sincerity. Sincerity isn't having no secrets, hiding nothing; it's the further exposure of your real self that's required to build a more intimate relationship. When you speak, you honestly say what you truly think and are genuinely willing to exchange views; when you're together, you can show more of your sides to a degree — especially your vulnerability — rather than showing only one side, even if that one side is real too.

Finally, care: to delight in what the other delights in, to hurt at what the other hurts at. Meet all of the above, and it's not merely a healthy relationship but the kind that genuinely means something to you — a very inner-circle relationship within your circle of social support.

Go back through them in reverse order (care, sincerity, respect), and each one you subtract moves the relationship one ring outward. Take away care, for instance, and you can't be friends or the kind of deeply collaborative partner; take away sincerity too, and you can't even be ordinary friends, just nodding acquaintances. Take away respect as well, and a relationship like that is best kept politely at arm's length, and soon.

A lot of people say that as you grow up you lose your edges and become someone with rounded-off opinions. I don't think so — on the contrary, it's only after growing up that I've grown my own edges, gradually forming judgments about people and things that go beyond the relationship itself.

Even grown up, I often keep this in mind: spend more time around the "true, the good, and the beautiful." Their preciousness runs in exactly that order, too.

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Back when I worked in the industry, every time a company went public, some barely-connected person on my social feed would go congratulate them. Congratulating the company would be one thing, but they'd name names — congratulations to Zhou Yuan, to Su Hua, to Cheng Yixiao... Do these people even know you, that you're congratulating them? Are you even on their feed?

Likewise, years ago when I was still in the industry, I went through plenty of being sized up and served accordingly — sometimes by peers at dollar-fund shops, sometimes by founders. I was very indignant at the time and studied all kinds of things like mad, all to see who was more professional. Looking back now, titles, elite schools, institutions — none of it matters that much.

Reviewing it now, the people I was congratulating every day back then hadn't actually done anything, and a lot of them shared one trait: an overpowering competitive mindset. That, ironically, undermines your competitiveness. Decades of education and a work environment have amplified the short-term positive feedback of ranking and promotion; a competitive mindset that counts slots and tallies total scores turns a lot of positive-sum things into zero-sum or even negative-sum games.

From a career standpoint, what matters more is what work you've actually got, which "products" you've actually made. From the standpoint of a life, these things matter even less to care about — better to make yourself strong, and then everything becomes strong. Choosing the posture in which you spend your one and only life, and not regretting it, is the key to an individual living this life well.

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So — you don't have to believe any big-name influencer. Pour everything into building and constructing your own core business: grow, grow, and grow again; spend your time where it's meaningful. A social platform is just a social platform, unrelated to actual ability, and unrelated to character too.

If I had to sum it up, relationships between people can be understood as: either a patron, or a customer, or a partner, or a freeloader, or a passerby. So what to do is obvious at a glance: provide value to customers, unite with partners, keep patrons satisfied, reduce freeloading, and don't care about passersby.

I was chatting with a friend a while back, and the subject of enthusiasm going unreciprocated came up. I didn't understand it before; now I think it's perfectly normal. Offering your enthusiasm proactively is admirable, no doubt, but getting along with people can't run on one round of self-moving sentimentality after another, and don't put the other person in a hard spot either. None of us can make everyone like us, and there's no rule that says the other person has to respond to your enthusiasm. One-sided enthusiasm can, to the other person, be a kind of nuisance.

Stepping way back, enthusiasm going unreciprocated is no big deal — just cut your losses in time and don't torment yourself. Save more of your tenderness for family and friends. Believe that you'll always meet the right person who's willing to take your sincerity and treat it as a treasure.

At the same time, I still firmly believe: in this world, only sincerity can be exchanged for sincerity. To people of a higher order, all the tricks and tactics are petty little games not worth mentioning.

Giving your heart to someone is, somehow, a kind of venture capital: failure is the high-probability event, but you still have to invest in the next one, and the one after that — that's the fate of venture capital, and also the reason venture capital keeps getting richer.

Enough candor is invincible, but the disillusionment does take its own experience and process. You have to go through being treated insincerely — after all, everyone who appears in your life shows up to teach you something.

If I had to pick one simple dimension for making friends, I'd recommend this: "upright and kind + a strong personality and set of values" is a great cluster of traits in a friend.

Finally, the combined ability of insight plus getting-people-and-things-done can also be reflected and embodied in your work and your cash flow:

• Monthly income reaching 10,000 shows you can get some things done;
• Monthly income reaching 30,000 shows you can lead people and independently run a small piece of business; monthly income reaching 50,000 shows you have a moat on both the people and the work;
• Monthly income reaching 100,000 shows you built a small business from zero on your own;
• Monthly income reaching 200,000 shows you have above-average insight into the industry and your own small team of three to five people keeping the business stable;
• Monthly income reaching 1,000,000 means revenue of 100 million — a business that size means you've genuinely seen the world.

Back in the industry, I saw a lot of self-made bosses from Guangdong and the Jiangsu-Zhejiang area, and the profile was fairly similar: not much education, poor Mandarin, cigarette and drink never out of hand.

It wasn't until later that I understood: however fancy the display, none of it beats "winning battles."

Honestly, I used to look down on "self-made bosses" a bit. After starting a company myself, I really came to feel that a self-made boss who can be a boss at all has some real chops: a business model of their own that stands up to grinding and actually makes money — something I, at least right now, can't do — so I have to admire and respect them. Since starting a company, I've very much hoped to one day become a self-made boss who "wins battles."

Look back through history: in China there are plenty who started from the have-nothing economy, built grassroots businesses on sheer volume and scale, then turned around and acquired the pretty, prestigious, wealthy brands to form a group — aka surrounding the cities from the countryside. But those who rise on elitism often trip over their own idol-baggage. The most formidable are the ones who are clearly elite yet can go right down among the grassroots. The most pitiful are the middle layer, the ones stuck neither up nor down.

Ordinary people: don't make "big and strong" the goal — make "make money, survive, make more money, live long" the goal. The common man should not chase big and strong; staying alive and making money is king. A side hustle at triple the salary keeps you busy; the individual earning a million a year is right there beside you; a small, fine company ranks higher still; and five million in revenue brings the heart its fragrance.

The path of life's growth: question the rules, understand the rules, use the rules, become the rules.

The path of life's ideal: question the self-made boss, understand the self-made boss, admire the self-made boss, become the self-made boss.

06 On Sport: Competitive sport is a novel that never stops updating

If I've been luckier than anyone, it's that I found my love of sport fairly young.

Sport really is a rare good thing in this world. One of the rare arenas where "you're just not good enough," "loser," and "try harder next time" are written right there in the open.

Get on the field often and you'll get used to it: lose and own it, win and forget it, focus on yourself, don't blame others. Everyone needs some moments like these. This is also one of the great gifts an ordinary person takes from competitive sport.

(Figure in original.)

At the same time, I think people who've truly grasped the core of sport rarely do badly in business. Sport is: if you can, you can keep on. If you can't keep on, you can't. There can be ten thousand reasons to explain why something can't be done; there's probably only one reason it can be done — you just wanted it done.

One of the biggest things sport gives an ordinary person, I think, is the realization that stretching out the timeline, widening your field of view, and building up a sense of accomplishment and confidence by getting one small thing done can solve nearly every problem in life.

At the same time, take the thing in your own field to the very top, and then no matter what happens in other fields, you actually haven't missed a thing. Because up at the very top, people aren't divided by specific field — they all belong under one name, the field called "people who took the thing to the most incredible level."

(Figure in original.)

In competitive sport, Kobe and Federer taught me a few important lessons:

• Being your own quiet admirer is actually a very good "quality." As someone who wants to do something, you have to be able to admire yourself in your own quiet way — it's a necessary skill for a good learner. If a huge number of people admire you, then you're surely a mainstream person for the masses. In the vast majority of specialized fields, having 200 people admire you is already pretty good. So what do you do? You have to admire yourself, and raise the weight you give yourself to 80% — that's how a person keeps from getting depressed.
• A superstar going cold in one game and missing all his shots is perfectly normal. Never mind — next game, keep taking your shots and running your moves, that's all there is to it.
• When things aren't going your way, that top-tier competitiveness, that gaze and body language of desperately wanting to win — that's your last safe harbor.

The first thing sport made me aware of is this: as athletes, they're always building this one work — themselves. By analogy, for us, I think it's this: in the field you're passionate about, build your uniqueness through authenticity and reach compounding through accumulation, and then you'll have your own dedicated flywheel — the extraordinary meaning of authentic creation.

First, your creation "defines" you. Through the lens of Stoic philosophy, imagine: a year from now, five years from now, even at the final moment of life — what does your future self hope to see? The satisfaction of indulging in fleeting digital entertainment, or the pride that comes from sincere creation?

Second, becoming truly yourself brings an incalculable compounding effect. Naval even coined the concept of "authenticity compounding" from this: authenticity means you pour your ideas and effort into your work, and the originality that follows finds its footing and its niche; your work keeps shaping your image, people start to trust you and are willing to recommend you to more people. When what you're promoting is an extension of yourself, then "no one can compete with you."

Finally, authentic creation lets you stay passionate and focused. Don't envy the content that looks popular or goes viral — it chases fleeting attention, not deep connection; reduce your attention on information outside your signal system, because once noise steals the learning time you use to build your passion, focus is lost, and high-quality creation becomes impossible.

The second thing sport made me aware of is this: in the long run, maintaining stable, sustained output within a field is what matters most — not trying to perform far above your average every single time. Once you've built up rich enough experience, you radiate that kind of confidence. And confidence brings a powerful virtuous cycle, and passion is, in a sense, a byproduct of mastery.

Under East Asian culture, for most Chinese, university is the extension of their parents realizing their own dreams; and a lot of young people, the moment they get their acceptance letter, feel they've completed the mission their parents handed them. The moment they get their diploma, they feel they've finally ended a reluctant career of exams, and never want to study again for the rest of their lives.

The sad thing is, life really is a long marathon, and a diploma is just a fairly decent position secured within that marathon; and life — this true university — is a road that's only just begun.

Anyone who's watched a marathon knows that at the instant of the start the road is very crowded, but once a quarter of the course is behind you, the runners have spread apart from one another, and the little advantage you grabbed at the start has long since vanished by then.

And the real race happens after 30 or even 36 kilometers: that's when the bayonets come out. Life is the same: those who make a name young are rarely the ones who "end well"; and those who take a long time to come into their own are no cause for regret.

Many Chinese parents keep saying you can't let your kid lose at the starting line, doing everything they can to grab the best possible spot for the child at the start. But in fact, the road to success isn't as crowded as imagined; over the long marathon of life, the vast majority of people "drop out," willingly or not, halfway through. In the end, the few who remain aren't fretting that there are too many rivals — they're fretting about how to find a companion to run alongside them.

So, to know yourself is to better raise your children. I think that, compared with so-called genes, the self's character (ego, courage, resilience, independence) more readily shapes children, and has a positive influence on them.

Musk was once asked, "What's the biggest challenge of your life?" Musk, always clear-thinking and endlessly voluble, rarely fell into thought — then he said one of the lines that has inspired me most: One of the biggest challenges I think is making sure you have a corrective feedback loop, and then maintaining that corrective feedback loop over time even when people want to tell you exactly what you want to hear.

A corrective feedback loop is nothing profound once you spell it out, but great truths are simple, and very few people actually carry it through: what we call "iteration" every day is essentially building a corrective feedback loop. The problem is that most of the time the feedback is unclear, undirected, uncorrectable. And that's exactly when we stop making progress. But sport's corrective feedback loop is very direct and very timely.

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The third thing sport made me aware of is this: a person is not only the sum of their experiences. A person is also the sum of their beliefs. "Others are great, and so am I" is a mindset you can practice all the time; if you always dare to affirm yourself, miracles turn into the everyday. Never call yourself something like "a nobody"; on every small matter, look at yourself often with natural, calm, appreciative eyes. What a person calls themselves is a spell that comes true naturally once it's said enough.

Do what you love, with a tenacious attitude, holding the conviction that you'll win, and love what I love. Everything you persist in will surely bring you the joy of persistence, so long as you keep your original heart.

And take the thing in the field you love to the very top, and then no matter what happens in other fields, you actually haven't missed a thing. Because up at the very top, people aren't divided by specific field — they all belong under one unified name, the field called "people who took the thing to the most incredible level."

So, in the field you're passionate about, build your uniqueness through authenticity and reach compounding through accumulation, and you'll have your own dedicated flywheel.

Someone asked: what should I do if I have too many hobbies? I feel a little interested in everything. Answer: sorry — a hobby isn't the thing you enjoy; it's the thing you're willing to do even at a cost and a sacrifice, and still take joy in.

Lying on the beach isn't a hobby; that's surrendering to the lazy gene. So a lot of people don't actually like making money, because making money is hard work — they just like having money and spending it.

So, do the things you love, and that way, you've got two lives.

07 Wish List

First, here's hoping I can go sub-3:30 in Berlin tomorrow!

There was once an "International Loneliness Grading Chart" that circulated online for years: going to eat hotpot alone, going to the hospital alone, going to the amusement park alone...

The year that chart burst onto the scene, doing these things solo sounded almost unthinkable, but over these years I've unknowingly "completed" every item on the list, one step at a time. And yet the sense of loneliness hasn't lessened; a solitary way of living has instead become my standard-issue everyday.

But sometimes I suddenly feel that "raising yourself as you grow up" is quite romantic. Or, to put it another way: though I'm lonely, I'm not forlorn. To put it more romantically: I'm completely free.

Growing up, I've found that having your wishes come true is a matter of luck, and things going against your wishes is the norm. Even as a J-type, I have to prepare for the pain of disappointment, failure, and loss, again and again — it's an unavoidable part of growing up.

As an emotionally sensitive person, I always feel more of both joy and sorrow than my peers, as if I'm always feeling a richer, more layered world, feeling a life of grander swings.

I believe more and more that a sensitive temperament is a gift from heaven. Even though I might occasionally come up empty when my enthusiasm goes unanswered or when giving and getting don't match, much of the time I still find the world beautiful, in feeling with it, over and over.

It reminds me at every moment that life may not be so ideal, but it's not utterly awful either. Even in the dark, don't forget the warmth and light that family, friends, and passersby once gave you.

But as time passes, I've gradually come to understand: when facing choices and confusion, one principle is enough to remember — always head toward the wider open.

In the new year, here's wishing myself continued sailing through wind and wave, and bravely crossing swords with the world.

I also hope everyone can have the true thing to show off: the ability to fall asleep without any aids and without insomnia, and a body free of any nodules or hidden troubles.

Second, the wish list is as follows, still not divided by year: cross it off when it's done, add it on when there's something new.

1: In my lifetime, I pray the mainland doesn't go to war.

2: Running (of the "updated on schedule" series): BQ Boston, New York, Chicago, Berlin; 10km sub-37min; full marathon 2:55.

4: Travel: international — Antarctica, Africa, New Zealand; domestic — Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan.

5: See Their concerts: Bon Jovi (if there's still a chance); Yoga Lin; Jeff Chang; Rene Liu.

7: Learn interior renovation.

Finally: "May you be fierce, may you savor it; and when the deep winter has passed, may you become a new person with a new soul."

(Figure in original.)