写在26岁到来之际On Turning 26
Translated from the Chinese original, first published on WeChat「世像」on October 11, 2020.本文 2020.10.11 首发于微信公众号「世像」。
导读
这是一篇长文。全文大约14000字，阅读时长建议不小于15min。
建议你耐心读完，如果能完整读完一遍，建议你再读一次。
01 回顾
还是那句话：打心底里儿由衷地承认，正视，接纳，拥抱，喜欢这个不那么好的自己，是今年的功课之一。
2020的确很难，对每个人都如此。
随着中国在短时间内抗疫取得进展，而疫情却在欧美诸国爆发的"剧情反转"，全球舆场出现了"人权没了"(human right)还是"人全没了"(human left)的争论。指望欧美国家和人民自觉是指望不上了，只能希望疫苗早日投产问世。
与我而言，在事业上未有太多长进，但生活中和认知改变很多，亦更见人心。
今年一直在做的三件事，是总结，观察，思考：人生是个什么game；职业和选择是个什么game，以及马拉松是个什么game。
同时，忙里偷闲间整理出一套自己的"歪理邪说：1个中心，2个基本点，不可能3角，和4项基本原则。
过去的一年，尤其2020年，是一个认知极大提升的一年，或者更多是看问题的视角转换之后带来的收获。虽然依旧迷茫，但焦虑感在逐渐减少，想要探索的方向也逐渐看到了曙光。
未来怎么样，现在还不得而知。就像谁都没能想到，突如其来的这场灾难，深刻的改变了世界，国家和我们的生活。此时，只想分享此刻的感受。生日更多只是个幌子，只是便于审视过去的时间和未来的世界。
23岁时，我告诉自己的是：过去几年太执着于be cool, be smart, be interesting，走了很多弯路才肯承认自己是个不洒脱又无聊的蠢人。不如把be interesting这样的事交给那些真正有趣的人去做，我就负责站在台下真诚鼓掌。希望新一岁可以be real，be kind，be independent。
24岁，告诉自己的是：多关注本质，少在意噪音；多尽兴，少回头以及不要很快的磨去棱角。
25岁，和自己说的是：Be sharp, be open
那26岁，就和自己说：Be patience ，be brave and be constancy
回顾这年，给自己打个70分吧。
02 人即万物
工作和生活里，我一直不太喜欢的几个词是"兄弟""哥们"、"朋友"。尤其在北方，这个词被用的过于频繁，然而真的以"兄弟"待人的寥寥无几。大部分都是各自心里打着小九九用这个词和别人套近乎，盘算着怎么从"兄弟"身上捞点好处。逢人称兄弟，即使深交也平常。
相比那些一开始就很热情把每个人都当熟人的人来说，我更喜欢的是开始不怎么说话。但只要觉得志同道合，认定之后就会一直以诚相待的人。
在日常语境里，也不轻易的去使用「朋友」这个词。
「熟人」、「认识的人」、「我们在何时何地见过几次」这些都≠朋友。是朋友就大大方方地说是「好朋友」。久而久之，围绕着你的自然就是那些你从心里真正想接近的人。「因为我们联结在一起，所以我们也都更自由了一点。」
孤独本是常态，自由意志也很难能可贵。好的关系是既能在关系中找到惺惺相惜的理解、共情与支持的部分，也能在关系中继续相互保持和发展自己的自由意志。志同道合的朋友越多，就越要意识到「群而不党」真是太难能可贵了。
大家都是成年人了，分辨得出的谁真正把你当朋友，谁只是想套信息。别为了套信息，虚情假意的搞一套嘘寒问暖，我看得出来。言语可能好听，但你的行动骗不了人。
之前有朋友问，发现毕业工作后，朋友越来越少怎么办。这个真相是：人生至此我还没见过年纪越大，朋友反而越多的人。所以，你并不是在抱怨朋友变少，本质是对当下的交友质量不满意，而背后的本质原因是——你并不喜欢和满意自己当下的生活。
朋友说白了就是互换。而互换模式分三种
1：利益互换 2：情感互换 3：价值观互换
要尽可能的减少1，增加2和3。如果你身边全都围绕1，那人生未免也太悲哀了。
换一个维度，朋友分两种：
- 利益（工作、应酬、所谓"人脉"）
- 情感（共同的兴趣、价值观、互相欣赏）
两部分有不同的侧重点，前者在人侧重入世时的阶段是重要的，但无需刻意，保持自己性格真诚、处事平衡即可；后者的乐趣与持续性会长久一些。事实上，真正能够帮助我们的人是早已确定好的，强求或图谋之类用处不大。人与人之间的缘分要顺其自然。
我希望我自己以及我的朋友们是：性格可以不一样，生活习惯也不同；但大家对彼此的底层属性比较认可，不会让彼此失望，一直在用心地学习和生活，没有满足于停在原地，在各自轨道上一起前进，很值得珍惜。
去年发过一个微博是：宁愿少拥有或者不拥有某些关系，也不愿意再为了留住别人而不断消耗自己。我的爱和时间都好宝贵，不如全部回馈给自己和真正值得的人。今年一直以来在实践这一点。
疫情的一大收获是，让我更明白：我还是更喜欢真实的，专一的、更深层次的社交关系，更喜欢的是一个个真实的人，能坐下来聊天吃饭，而不是手机里的所谓的通讯录和联系人，那各种繁琐，复杂，虚张声势的"title和Tag"，太复杂太累了，我不喜欢。我无法想象身边有些人朋友圈分组高达30多个。
永远不要把家人、朋友或者重要的另一半的优先级降低。三五知己胜过千百「熟人」。通讯录的数字，社交媒体以及粉丝数不重要。
多试着去和朋友举办些"聚会"，或彻夜长谈（当然是偶尔），直到太阳升起。
真正的朋友就像太阳，走到哪照到哪；表面的朋友就像月亮，初一十五各不一样。所以引申出一点：帮别人忙时只有两种选择：1.毫无怨言地帮；2.毫无余地地拒绝。除此之外的任何选择，全部都是吃力不讨好。帮9次，1次不帮，等于1甚至是0。
今年最大的一个收获是：大多数人，他们都没有想过以及想清楚，在生活，工作上，他们到底在和谁竞争。他们把谁当做peer。
以及，太多人真的不会做选择和跳槽换职业，大多数人只停留在换公司和看薪水这个层级，在此之外，几乎别无他物。
拿金融来举例子，70%以上的人，比如做投行（IBD）的，70%跳槽的时候只会盯着PE，20%的会考虑一些别的（互联网，金融行业的），好像这个世界除了金融和互联网，就没有别的职业和行业了。而这么选的原因是因为他们只盯着peer：周围的人，学长学姐，同学朋友大部分都是这么选的，而这么选最稳妥。
找准你的peer：你到底以及准备和谁竞争？决定一个人成就高低的往往不是每次比赛赢还是输了，而是长期习惯于把自己放置在哪个层级竞争；而人生的一大幸事是：你能棋逢对手。而且请谨慎地选择你的竞争对手，因为最后你们，很大可能"趋于一致"。
这一个收获来自我之前看问题的视角从交易转向人之后，发现有了全然不同的收获：视角变成人之后，整个"信息流"，"资金流"，"物流"都会在你面前过一遍，而这也是会拥有上帝视角的一个来源。大多数人（包括我自己）都没意识到，当下的职业，让我某种程度上变成了一个information hub。
我后来发现自己可以进行一场大型社会实验，当然大多数人都不知道也意识不到这件事的意义和重要性。你永远只能看到别人怎么做，而无法知道别人怎么想。而你为一段关系设立的规则，别人是不一定要遵守的。
一直想要说的一点是：很多所谓的投资人其实都没什么insight，投资机构也很虚，所以不要被所谓的title所吸引和吓到。这其实本质是另一种职场隐形pua。所以我一直没在这些人身上浪费太多时间和精力。所以那些之前问我行业里有哪些比较不错的投资人的朋友们，我快可以给你们答案了。
职场上有很多人教你以及教过你如何"做事"，你也天天想着如何把手上的事做好，并且去做更多的事；这没有错，absolutely right。但有一点被很多人忽略了，那就是："识人"。
做事是创造价值，而识人是寻找放大价值的杠杆。
作为集团CEO，逍遥子每年问自己两个问题，第一：今年我为集团找了哪几个人，看清楚关键词是"找"，不是"招"。第二：今年我为集团养了哪几个新业务，或者开辟了哪几个新赛道。
2012年双11前夜，马爸爸送给逍遥子八个字。他说逍遥子，你现在是"做事用人"，但你要走向"用人做事"。"做事用人"就是你把事情怎么做想得清清楚楚，但越往后走，团队越来越大，组织越来越复杂，你要考虑整个组织每个板块结构怎么设计。
那些正在创业和打算创业的朋友们，都非常真诚的建议你们把招人当做公司的top 2级别的优先级任务；CEO或者一把手，一定要亲自体验和感受一下。
成年人的"聪明"有两个影响因素：一是获得信息的质量，二是解读信息的能力（包括不限于理解、分析、应用等）。
很多人以为第二件事比第一件更重要，这是因为大家一般只跟自己的peer比较以及他们根本不知道应该把谁当做peer。
然而事实是，解读信息的能力确实是区分同一level人的最重要因素。但真正区分不同level以及提升层级的，是获取信息的质量。在信息质量差异面前，解读信息的能力几乎无足轻重和不值一提。
大多数人，每天都被各种烦心琐事、具体而微的工作、毫无意义的社交所打扰。别说「think big, think long, think deep」了，大部分人都没有基本的「think」，只靠着基本的惯性往前走。而那些惯性，就是日常的那些所谓的信源。
所以，请不定期地检视一下你的核心信息来源是什么，它到底是不是足够好。道理很简单：如果你不读书也不结交有质量的社交关系，每天摄入的所有信息，就只有你那破工作的一亩三分地；想方设法给你洗脑和给你卖东西的公众号、各种综艺节目和天天自己也不知道在干嘛的「朋友」教给你的东西了。Day and Day，你的脑子能不出问题么。
当然，每个人都需要摄入娱乐、轻松、看完就忘的东西，Of course， we need it——但同样都是是娱乐的东西，有的在滋养你，有的也是在消耗你，你能明白我意思么？有些东西甚至连娱乐和信息都称不上，充其量只是八卦，价值极低。而你究竟「让」哪些信息一点点改变你：你的性格、认知、观念、格局。
筛选信息源的一个方法是远离那些任何事情，所有热点都要多少发表一点自己评论和见解的人。如果一个人「什么都知道」一些，那TA就「什么都不知道」。
避免让那些琐碎，无聊，烦人的事情和垃圾每天占据你的心智和精力。尤其是工作中，少关注那些并不重要的事，减少你的认知负担。去除掉那些令你分心的东西。他们不重要。
去年和今年一直在做的一件事是持续做减法和探索边界和兴趣。今年尤其把减法差不多感觉到极致了。
有人问我怎么做减法，大概是以下几种：
- 关闭所有app推送
- 退掉所有每天很吵的微信群
- 取关很多公众号
- 关闭朋友圈（只发不刷）
- 退订所有短信
- 固定衣着，减少思考穿什么的纠结和选择（之前和大熊说，打算从明年开始实践这个）
所以，我的微信未读，从来没有超过2位数；没有很多未接来电和短信消息；除了微信，不开app推送。大块大块的时间都是我自己的：读书，跑步，写东西，思考，放空，到点睡觉。生活简简单单，单调充实重复。
（图：原文此处有配图——去年&现在的公众号一览：554个公众号 → 219个公众号）
相信我，那些，这些东西他们没有那么重要，不看，不刷，取关，不交往很多人，对你的生活不会有任何影响。今年我尝试了很多方面，哦对还有下面这个：有朋友有时候会问我对一些事的看法是什么，我说我没有看法。
要不断的告诉自己：世界上绝大多数东西既不关心，你也没有能力判断。英国脱欧，黄金涨价，石油大跌，xx出轨这些都和大多数人没什么关系。我们不用在很多问题上有看法和观点，只需要在少数真正重要的事情上有正确且能够坚持的观点。对绝大多数事情保持以下几点即可："我不知道"、"我还没想清楚"、"我不关心"。
"保持无知"某种意义上比"什么都知道"更难。
事实上，根本不需要有任何看法。因为慢慢你就会发现，一生中，我们真正需要真正有看法的事情太少太少。不要去关心那些无意义的东西，只关注那些你真正该关注的东西。
这些年，那些天天刷屏阅读各种分析报告，花大量时间讨论英国脱欧，宝万之争等财经大事，每天在朋友圈微博分享自己的观点和鸡汤，不断的努力和判断下一波浪潮和商机，他们热点感知，谈资丰富，出言成章，但这么多年过去，依旧一事无成，钱包空空。你还记得最近你手机里最热闹的新闻标题或者热门词么？你可能90%都想不起来了，你只能想起他们原来曾经那么的流行。正所谓：繁花似锦；烈火烹油。
减少最热点信息的即时摄入程度，可以稳定心绪，将注意力放在真正重要的事情上。相信我，绝大多数人的观点和信息从来不值一看。
你想在你百年以后，墓碑上刻着这样的字么：此人酷爱阅读，每天阅读公众号几十，微博上百。追了一千个社会热点和娱乐明星话题；每年都能熟练使用当年的网络流行语；参加了数千个工作聚会和饭局应酬，进过数十次ICU。如果你想要，那么去努力吧。
不是什么事情都值得去谈论的，张嘴提及，是对自己的侮辱。"声声入耳，事事关心"的意气早就随着岁月蹉跎而消失殆尽。把"憎恶"变成"远离"，把"物质"变成"品味"，把"热爱"变成"拥抱"，把"远大理想"变成"力所能及"。
我朋友圈关了太久（只发不刷）。生活里没有很多东西。共鸣也没有那么重要，"引起共鸣"是一种最简便的获得流量的生意。
（图：原文此处有配图——《十三邀》截图：我越来越对形成共识不感兴趣）
要克服你的虚荣心，你的炫耀欲，要对付时刻想要出风头的小聪明。我不太想追逐最前沿和热门的概念了，只在乎自己真心喜爱的东西且用心去体验——这也是自己一直在找和做的事。
有人之前问我：不追综艺，不看朋友圈，这也不看那也不看，你没事干的时候都做什么？你跟周围人没有共同话题怎么办？
a. 能做的事情太多了，而且时间根本不够用。豆瓣里躺着看不完的书和电影纪录片，各种体育运动，太多想去的地方
b. 对于"没有话和朋友聊"我一点都不担心，是真正的共同话题最终把那些聊得来的朋友，让彼此向彼此真正靠拢和沉淀，而不是一味的为了以消耗自己的方式去维持那些转眼就会逝去和飞散的情谊。
你要相信，你真正的好朋友，不会在意你有没有给ta点赞，评论；而你所谓的那些人脉，人家更不是care。平时线下多聚聚远胜于社交媒体的点赞。你总想从别人身上获取什么的时候，就渐行渐远了。人脉，不是别人能给予你的，是你能帮助多少人。别把时间花费在这些东西上
人每天只有两件事要做:认识自己，和爱自己。其他事情都是通向这两件事的工具。
人生的理想状态，是像Amazon，而不是Tesla的股价——在相当的时期内"默默无闻的坚守"，与之伴随的还有不被绝大多数人理解。但只要把对的事情坚持下去，世人最终会知道你做的事情的价值所在。
当然，如果你做的是开拓边界的事，就应该对自己的「底层操作系统」有绝对的信心，把"同行"看不懂你在做什么当成一种赞美。
03 十年磨一剑
今年一个最大的感受，很多人（尤其所谓的聪明人）其实不会做出好的选择，或者用行业里的话说叫：他们玩着玩着，就把自己玩成了有限游戏。这和mindset有关，和是不是名校毕业，智商高低关系不太大。他们只看一步，没有更宏观和大局的把握和感受
职业生涯前十年的主要任务（应该没有之一，是找出接下来五十年你想和谁以及什么样的人一起工作。
Elon musk给年轻人的人生建议里和巴菲特的建议有一条一毛一样：和自己尊敬的人一起工作。
我们在很多地方看过一句话叫十年挥一剑，而这有个前提：十年挥一剑的前提是一剑磨十年。
（图：原文此处有配图——书页摘录，贝索斯名言："不仅要思考变，更要思考不变。"）
今年和很多朋友探讨了关于职业生涯和工作选择的问题。我自己收获良多。很多人或者有一种说法和倾向叫：去做你喜欢的事，选工作选钱多的。这个观点或者说法是不准确的。
兴趣爱好是最好的老师，但大概率不是最好的主业——因为喜欢是悦己的，而工作是要悦人的。而且你需要确定和区分：喜好和热爱可不一样，对吧？喜欢做一件事，和做一件事能让你暂时逃避真实的焦虑和烦恼，是两个不同的东西。你做的决定，是在追求你更想要的？还是在逃避你不想要的？
那应该怎么做呢？做你擅长的事和你真正有passion的事。
你擅长的事，你大概率能做好且还多少有点兴趣，只不过每个人程度，比例不同而已；而长此以往，你的自信心是在不断建立和提高的，再去做别的事，你不那么擅长和不喜欢的事，也会逐渐得心应手。
而自信这个东西，和钱一样。你只有拥有了一些，才能拥有更多，而且只能自己给自己，别人无法真正给予你。
而那些真正能在一个行业里做久的人，都是当下或者long term都找到了自己热爱的行业和事业。你要相信，钱，一定不能一直驱动你前行。看清楚我的表述：一直驱动。
不管你是在B（ytedance）AT。还是红杉高瓴；不管你是在MBB，还是在创业，hedge fund；不管你是清北复交还是大美藤校，还是最普通的芸芸大众。到最后，你都是在和这个行业的疯子在斗，你不擅长，也没有热爱和passion，你是斗不过别人的。毕竟，热爱可抵岁月漫长。
为什么迪士尼不仅能吸引孩子，大人们也挺爱愿意去呢？生活和工作中，我们日复一日的要主动被动的要求做个大人，控制情绪；只有在这里，我们才可以"完完全全"的去做个孩子，去"享受热爱"。
目标决定方向，目标不明或者不能量化，都会导致目标难以真正落地和实施。去xx公司不应该是目标，它只是手段，你要做和应该做的，是找到手段背后的目标。
如果你没有找到擅长，passion和自己的热爱，就只能一次次去跳槽和在跳槽后又陷入沉寂和迷茫。如果你年轻的时候停止去寻找了，呢就不要在年老的时候感慨和后悔。
（图：原文此处有配图——微信聊天截图：你是不是也这样？入职就开始想着骑驴找马）
钱很重要，但不应该成为唯一的参数的变量。跳槽是选择和手段，不是目的。去到xx公司也不应该当做目的。喜欢和不甘心可不是一件事，对吧？相信我，人无法委屈自己一辈子的。做自己想做的。
身边和行业里见过挺多这类人了，好像都是一个模子刻出来的。举个栗子吧：他们大都中学时代出国、HYPSM念本科、毕业去投行、去读2年MBA然后做私募和对冲基金、跳到公司里学习一下实业怎么做、被大boss赏识调到亚洲区做一把手。30多岁，职业生涯已经走到巅峰也就算是"走到头"，当然也totally不缺钱了——然而横亘在心中的两个问题始终没变：
- 这辈子我到底要干点什么呢？
- 我这么年轻就功成名就了（30 under 30）为什么还是不特别开心呢？
这块，之前哈佛大学有过一个相关的很著名的实验：
哈佛的教授问他的学生，如果在4月2号那天，你们感到特别开心或者极其开心的话，请举手。为什么选4月2号呢？因为4月2号，是学校给学生发offer或者拒信的日。所以4.2是他们收到这些通知的日子。那封信告诉他们说，你被哈佛录取了。
班上有1000多学生，几乎每个人都举手了。然后他又问，你们有多少人，在那个时间点上觉得你这一辈子以后都会一直很幸福，手就不要放下来。几乎所有的人还是手都举起来的，为什么？因为他们的朋友，媒体，社会都这么告诉大家：也许你们现在不幸福，别担心，只要你进了Harvard，Berkeley这些顶级大学就会很高兴，你就会获得幸福。为什么？因为你进入有名大学就非常成功，人们就会高看你们，意味着你们会获得一份很好的工作，毕业之后可以赚很多钱，会非常成功，之后就能获得所有的幸福了。
之后他又问他们另外一个问题：进入哈佛之后，到今天你仍然觉得开心的话，手不用放下来。教授还加了一句：不用极其开心，只要开心就行，几乎所有的人都把自己的手放下去了。80%的哈佛学生他们不仅觉得不幸福，而且在过去一年中感到很抑郁。
80%的哈佛学生都至少体会过一次抑郁到无法学习的状态。这可不是我们日常所说的呢种简单的情绪波动，而是那种简直无法上学，无法生活的抑郁症。他们曾觉得他们这一辈子都会非常幸福，他们曾觉得成功是幸福的秘诀或者带来幸福的主要原因。其实不是的。
为什么你们会看到在这世界上有这么多的人，他们非常成功但他们却非常不幸福。有这么多的超级明星，歌星，演员他们不幸福，他们吸毒，酗酒，嫖娼。他们什么都有了，为什么不开心？
因为他们一生中，别人都告诉他们同样的故事：你即使现在不幸福，也不要担心，一旦你成功了就会获得幸福。所以当他们成功的时候，他们想要找谁就找谁，别人尊敬，崇拜他们，他们刚成功的时候，觉得这是世界上最美妙的感觉，但很快过了一段时间之后，他们就又回到了原来的状态。
他们觉得幸福好像是一个假象，而假象是无法持续的。所以后来他们不仅不幸福，他们甚至不再相信那个成功就会幸福的谎言了。所以，别人对你的评价可以很主观，但是你对自己的评价一定要客观，知道自己几斤几两很重要。
你知道悲伤和抑郁有什么区别么？两者的区别是：抑郁是悲伤的同时还没有希望，抑郁就是丧失了希望的悲伤。
所以，那些非常成功的人士，他们就有这样的感觉，他们可能会感到悲伤，他们也不再抱有希望。因为他们知道：即使成功也不会更幸福了。所以他们喝酒或者吸毒，想要脱离现实。想方设法的去克服自己这种不幸福的感觉，但他们又不知道如何去排解。
幸福并不是由成功所带来的，当然，如果我是穷人的话，我没有钱买吃的东西，如果我能够获得成功就能给我们带来更大幸福，但是如果我们基本需求得以满足，这两者之间的关系就不是因果关系了。
成功和幸福之间的关系不是人们想象的那样，而且恰恰是相反的：不是成功是因，幸福是果。而是：幸福是因，成功是果。
所以，你还觉得你去到哪个公司，哪个行业，上什么学校就能解决你的问题和困境么？that's impossible。
在行业里也算有4年多了吧，见证了许多投资人从Analyst，associate成长为MD或Partner。也遇到了不少以一流的学历背景和高起点入行的人，后来黯然离开投资行业或者逐渐趋于默默无闻的人。
其特点不外乎傲娇、缺乏耐心、兴趣转换太快、缺乏谦卑、过于功利等。也有不少优秀的合伙人从较低的起点开始，学历一般，长的也不帅，但专注于自己的研究领域，持续多年发力，最终守得云开见月明。
随着年纪增长才慢慢感受到，耐心简直是善良之外最重要的美德了。而坚定和能向下兼容，也是多么难得和稀缺的2个品质。
不管工作中，还是生活，谈恋爱也好。同样，对别人好，是一种能力。快乐，也是一种能力，自信也是一种稀缺的能力。它们都是一种gift，不是后天习得的skill。
你要认识你自己，know your game
经济学里有一个概念叫做「不可能三角」。说的是一个国家不可能同时实现：资本流动自由，货币政策的独立性和汇率稳定性。说白了就是只能三项最多里选两个，你不能都要。
我今年自己瞎琢磨出一套理论叫：「人生不可能三角」——求财求名求开心。你也只能三选二，必须放弃一个。大部分人只拥有1个角，或者一个都没有，少部分人拥有2个角，真正三个角都有的，他们其实不是真正的开心，要承担巨大的压力，责任和负担。
（图：原文此处有配图——"人生不可能三角"示意图：求财、求名、求开心）
你要相信，你没有你想象的想要成功，你也没有你想象的那么能驾驭金钱。
那些你所仰慕，尊敬的大佬，名人，someone like Jack Ma，或者即使强如Elon musk，稀世多领域跨界天才，他也有bipolar disorder（医学上学名叫双向情感障碍，也被不太科学的叫做躁郁症。
众生皆苦。
他们反而真的是在为自己的热爱和passion所工作和打拼。不然早就崩溃无数次了。想到这，那一瞬间我好想终于明白为什么传记里人们总是不厌其烦的说：遇到他们相伴几十年的伴侣是此生最幸运的事情；所以，可能流浪只不过是少年时候的政治正确。到头来，你还是发现有一个爱你的人，等你的家，一起经历过的那些风雨和共享人间繁华，才是最幸福的事。
所以，想明白这一点，你就可以去做选择了，人生不可能三角，你到底在追求哪两个？
（图：原文此处有配图——摘录卡片：发生在人们身上的事主要都是人们自己选择的结果）
这里展开说一下求开心。开心的种类和层次是不一样的，有的是比较简单、淡然的开心；有的开心是经过层层波澜，攀登之后，"劳累"的那种味道。开心有三种，分别是多巴胺快乐、血清素快乐、内啡肽快乐。
多巴胺的快乐转瞬即逝。血清素的快乐虽然会让我们变得积极，可一旦缺乏又会使人陷入焦虑。说到底，只有内啡肽的快乐才是持久的，它带来满足和幸福，让人久久不能忘怀。
如何才能获得内啡肽呢？就是需要长时间的、连续性的去做一件事。有一个奇妙的时间点，在那个点之前，人会感到非常疲惫，一旦越过了那个点，身体就又会充满了活力，就又会感到振奋。这就是内啡肽。所以你到底需要哪种？
其实生活中有很多类似的「不可能三角」：比如大学生活「不可能三角」——3s只能选2个（study；social；sleep）；餐厅「不可能三角」——好吃、不贵、人少；恋人的「不可能三角」：养眼，优秀，踏实。所以最后人生的算术题，无非就是三选二。
当然，「不可能三角」并不是个足够完美的模型——你当然有一些反例，甚至你可以去追寻「三项都满足」的东西。但在绝大多数情况下，「不可能三角」可以帮助我们厘清思路、正视自己，帮助我们更好的决策，放弃某种不切实际的幻想。
人生的幸福质量，来自决策质量。
和完成任何大任务一样，能力有限的个体最重要的是先确定不做什么，「Not-to-do list」比「To- do list」重要十倍;。
所以，哪里是什么换工作和跳槽，其实根本就是在选择你的人生战略：想明白自己坚决不要放弃什么，然后勇敢地放弃其他东西。
这里有另外一个在中国很难的点，很多人不敢去做的点在于：我们习惯以"你拥有什么"，而不是以"你是什么样的人"来评断他人。
（图：原文此处有配图——摘录卡片：亚里士多德曾经说过，快乐来自我们能够发挥自己擅长的能力……我们每个人都是含着一把金汤匙来到这个世界的。）
之前刘飞老师说过一句话很认同：被人喜欢是因为名气、声望、家庭、籍贯、财产、收入、职业、公司甚至职级，其实是件糟糕的事情。因为它们是被赋予的，它们太容易被替代。要是能被人喜欢是因为觉得你有趣、可爱、机智、真诚、有好奇心、善良和对生活的热情。那就简直太好了。
can't agree more。
你不是害怕30岁，你是害怕30岁一事无成。不要随波逐流跟随大众做选择。勇敢坚定的去探索自我擅长和和热爱。并不是说，你敢一个人出去旅行，你敢一个人去贫民窟那些危险的地方，敢一个人去南极就叫作勇敢。
真正的勇敢是你敢于忽略周围人的眼光，敢于正视自己内心真正需要的东西，敢于在漫长的年年岁岁里始终坚持自己热爱的东西，做自己热爱的事业，过自己热爱的生活，敢于在周围人的不理解下，依然乐呵呵地过着自由自在的生活。
水在波涛汹涌时是水，在风平浪静时也是水。水知道既生为水，波澜与宁静就都是自己，并没有什么不好。于是水就做水该做的事，并等待着下一个变化的到来。石头投入水中必会引起波澜，但水并不在意。它知道无论外界如何扰动，自己都有能力回归平静，并重新映照出周遭的实相。
二十几岁的这几年，就是探索的年纪。你我没有白过。我见过太多的人彷徨，见过太多人的后悔，见过太多人的不甘心，他们都在29岁，或者30岁的节点上才幡然醒悟。
不然你就只能眼睛里再没光亮，毫无生机地过着日复一日，年复一年的生活。用10年去做一件事，慢慢积累，滴水穿石。20岁开始需要10年，30岁开始还是需要10年，40岁开始还是需要10年，50岁开始还是需要十年。不会因为你觉得自己年龄大了，老天就会加快你成功的步伐。任何时候开始，不能省略的步骤，一步都少不了。
之前有人问：你相信头脑还是心灵？我说我相信时间
这个世界上并没有什么同龄人，平均值，社会标准。只有我自己，眼前事，脚下路。
04 我吹过你吹过的风，这算不算相逢
那些能把事做成极致的人，在感情里也可以给人某种意义上的极致体验。今年持续在探索和学习的一个重要方向还是亲密关系。
突如其来的疫情，让一切变成了online模式，包括relation。但事实证明，科技和线上再怎么发达，线下的浪漫是永远无法被替代的。
眼神、动作、声音、气味、神态，说话的语调、走路时的姿态，这些都是线上永远无法代替和可感知的部分。你会对所有的信息有本能的感知："ta是不是想要再见的人"
社交账号看见的，永远只是冰山一角，那些碎片不足以让你对人有最基本的了解。我自己在努力的另一个方向是：大幅度减少线上生活，把线下生活过的足够丰富多彩。
在这一点上，我一直是一个反互联网化的，也是我老派的一面。所以这是我现在越来越不想微信聊天，有可能都会倾向选择线下长聊的一个原因。
对我来说，人是这样，店铺也是这样。只有置身于那个空间的时候，你才会真切感知到你与它之间的联系，"是是否是想要再去的店"，。而这些最本能的感知，与技术未来的发展没什么关系。
之前看到有个问题是：现在的男生踏出校门还会认真追求女生么，什么方式，能坚持多久？
今年的感受是：这一定程度是个伪命题。其实追女生并不需要很努力或者费劲。关键在于男生追的那个女生也对他有一定喜欢或者心意，双方处于一种半推半就的状态。如果女生需要一个男生证明他真的很喜欢她才愿意的话，那这个女生也没有对这个男生有多喜欢。所以，对的女生不需要怎么追，不对的女生再如何使劲，认真，努力追也是白费力气。
追女孩子要真诚，但别较真更别较劲。勇敢表达，大方追求，这是真诚；及时止损，主动断舍离，这是尊重。
而结婚的恰当理由应该是：我走在成长为一个完整的人的道路上，在未来的某个时间，我感到自己杯子里的东西是如此丰富，需要找一个人来分享多出来的部分。
今年的一个感受是：男人想明白了就会想要结婚，女人越是想的明白就越是不想结婚。
sex是肉体生活，遵循快乐原则；love是精神生活，遵循理想原则；marriage是社会生活，遵循现实原则。是三个完全不同的game和玩法。而婚姻的困难在于如何在同一异性身上，把三者统一起来，不让习以为常麻痹性的诱惑和快乐，不让琐碎现实损害爱的激情和理想。
很多人说，当代社会感觉婚姻，从以前的相互扶持依靠，到现在的合伙生活。少了很多人情味，多了很多得失利弊。
说的有一定道理，因为时代变了，女性地位和力量上升了，选择也多了。这是变化。但不变的依旧没变：婚姻与任何其他关系都一样。需要彼此有退让有付出，提供滋养与支持，否则无法保持平衡。伴侣并不能拯救我们。一段关系能够维持，需要彼此能量对等，付出心力对等，而不是控制、依赖、独占、索取。
这个世间真有金风玉露一相逢便胜却人间无数的爱情吗？我想应该是有的。只是珍贵的情感都需要珍贵的心去浇灌和盛放。试想，我们自己是这样的人么？我们（自己）拥有这样的心吗？看看我们通常是以怎样的心去对待世间的关系吧。
（图：原文此处有配图）
金钱，名誉，地位，永远不可能比真情更重要。有过真心以后，你就再也不想要、也不需要别的东西。如果有幸遇到让你心怦怦跳的人你应该珍惜ta，而不是去考验ta。
婚恋市场上两类人很可怕：自我感觉良好的男生和骑驴找马的女生。偏偏现在市场里充斥着太多这样的男孩女孩。
知乎上有一个问答我很赞同：为什么一线城市这么多优秀的女性还找不到男朋友？
高考考五门，如果你想要找一个门门都不低于你的人，通常情况下他的分数会高你一二十分以上。如果你加一条，数学至少高你10分，可能这个人总分会高你三十分以上。
所以，很多人会把，门门都不低于自己的对象称之为和自己差不多的，但我们一般不这么看，我们一般看总分。所以这么多优秀的人，都想找门门都不低于自己的，还误以为自己的要求是找和自己差不多的，自然就找不到了。其实要求高，找不到不可怕，可怕的是误以为自己要求很低。更可怕的是，别人指出来了，就立马跳脚，说什么婚姻不是必需品的，更可怕。
这是今年的另一个收获是：工作上要多做你擅长的事。感情上，要多做你不擅长的事。比如沟通和表达情感。恋爱期3个月以上的情侣，女生可以隔一周或者一个月，或者你们周末出去玩吃饭的时候，完了问男生一个问题：你今天对我什么感受，80%的男生答不上来。
另外，当下很多女生强调的一个点是他们需要情绪价值。不要以为只有女生需要情绪价值。男生也同样需要的，只不过男生不太善于表达。
同样都是人，生活都不容易，男人也需要被关心和照顾。所以一个知冷知热温柔的女人常常能俘获男人的心。偶尔作一下叫情调，但若时刻都以自我为中心，那么爱情天平，注定是无法持久维持的。每个人都想得到爱，也想要充分地发展自己的个人特性，自我实现。你能否在这一路人帮助，支持ta，而不是总是责骂，指责对方。
想到这的时候，突然意识到，之前ex留给的我，都是最珍贵的东西：陪伴，支持和自信。亦是男人最需要的东西。
有一瞬间突然感慨明白：人和人永远是无法拥有彼此，有的只是恰好遇见，然后共同度过一段时光罢了。只是有时候，希望这段时间可以变得无限长。但最后，还都是会分开的，热情也都会消解。
但「曾经拥有」比「一直拥有」重要得多，天长地久is overrated。爱得热烈与尽兴就好，好时光它从不骗人。
去年发过一个相关的微博：好想谈场那种八十年代的恋爱，沟通交流是写信，电话，吃饭、弹琴、读书、郊游。每次等信件的望眼欲穿，弹琴的含情脉脉；smartphone不值得甜蜜爱情
有时候想想，当一个直男真好，不用费尽心思追这个追那个，也可以错过很多性暗示，把时间放到更有意思的事情上去。而且不用猜来猜去，也不用去学什么讨好和依赖。
我虽然还没完全探索清楚自己有什么优点，但后来和隋老师说到这一点：我知道太容易认真是我的一个缺点，总是会在别人以玩笑话的时候，我"陷入进去了"；不过后来想想，也未必是缺点：①这就是real me；②认真大部分时候都是优点。
同样，今年有很大的一个感受是：人要承认自己的无知和无能。比如当有朋友和你倾诉的时候，你安慰不了ta就不要强行安慰，不然只会把事情搞砸。不知道，不了解一个东西，就不要强行理解，说话和评论。这一点上，我不够擅长和有天赋。
成年人选择伴侣，就是选择了未来的时间花在哪儿。而最佳伴侣，是你人生战场的盟友。
你想好怎么选了么？
05 满世界的跑，也在不断重新认识世界
保持和好玩儿的、值得交往的好朋友的关系的最好方法，就是多把时间花在自己身上。而我的选择是马拉松。
读书是1个中心，旅行和马拉松则是2个基本点。而三者有一个共同点，都是很private的行为和选择。
朋友们常问我的还有一个问题：跑这么远又不给钱，这么累图什么。
于生理上说，正式因为累，所以为了压制这种疼痛，身体会分泌内啡肽使你快乐。分泌的多了，跑步过程中你会感觉充满力量和自信，更多的是一种要飞起来的愉悦，跟着节奏，打着拍子，是魔鬼的步伐。这是Runner's High。
Pain is Inevitable ,Suffering is Optional。对许多人来说，马拉松是Pain，但是对于跑者来说，马拉松并不是Suffer，跑了才懂。
被《强风吹拂》里这句话：「人毕竟无法与别人共享速度与节奏，这一切只属于自己。」
谁跑谁知道。约好的配速是假的，说好的一直共同成长也只是理想状态，有些人跑着跑着就被拉爆了，有些关系说到头就到头了。长跑这项运动和人生一样，底色是大写的孤独。
我很感谢自己选择了跑步这项运动（当然还有篮球羽毛球）。跑步教会我的事情，可不仅仅是身体变好那么简单。
（图：原文此处有配图）
跑步让我学会和自己的身体去对话。跑步时，可以去倾听自己内心的声音，去感受那一步一步的向前推进，去体验和控制呼吸，去感受身体变化。
跑步让我有更多机会和自己独处。跑步时，会暂时放下生活和工作中的各种问题，会把所有的注意力放在自己和周遭的环境上：你有在三十多度的盛夏夜晚完成过一场高强度训练吗？你有在冷雨夜中默默坚持跑完训练里程吗？你有在雪地里跑过清晨的校园吗？这种独处的时光，真是又美好又奢侈，又痛苦又享受。
跑步让我意识自己可以变得更快更好。作为一个普通人，也许我们没有办法成为冠军，但我们却可以一次又一次的刷新自己的pb，提高自己的极限。这种runner high的成就感，是花钱买不到的。提高成绩和冲线的一瞬间，会让你觉得之前所有的付出、汗水和努力，都太值得。
不跑步理由有很多，跑步不需要理由，抬腿跑就可以。跑着跑着自己的小宇宙就像神经病似地燃烧起来了，周围跑的人再多你都不会感到渺小自卑，就打心底地觉得："就是很想赢啊！"虽然你也不知道到底要去赢些什么。
跑步之于我，是一种修行Running Monk，是我人生信条之一，让我永远不会忘记自己开始跑步的初衷，和一直跑下去的决心。
06 心愿单
祝你生日快乐的人很多，却少有人关心你这一天是否真的快乐。
而我想要的，是真正的快乐。
上面提了1个中心；2个基本点。3个不可能三角，最后还剩一个个人的4项基本原则：真诚；善良；坚定；勇敢。真诚是第一位的。
我试着给自己画了一个用户画像：
性格多棱镜
爱码字的宅星人
爱运动的品牌控
爱旅行的好奇宝宝
爱看书的哈利波特迷
长期小太阳间歇小确丧
上瘾新鲜事物克制好奇心
芸芸众生中的凡夫俗子
希望变成有趣的灵魂
这次想把心愿单变一个方式：不以年限划分，就以当下想实现的为界。实现了就划掉，有新增就加上。
1：希望有生之年世界和平（你还别笑，和平我们才能去干其他事）
2：跑步：BQ Boston、Berlin、Tokyo、NewYork 、Chicago；5km sub20min；10km sub37min；全马：2:42
3：旅行：国际：七大洲剩余部分；国内：新疆，西藏，云南
4：网球：争取30岁之前，去看一次四大满贯（按照这个疫情感觉很难，35比较靠谱）
5：音乐节：打卡音乐节
6：继续收集英版的哈利波特英文版
7：继续听Ta们的演唱会：Bon jovi；李宗盛；刘若英；梁静茹。
未来还有100种生活方式想要去过，去体验，去经历，去感受。
关心过程，也关心结果。
关心个体，也关心人类。
希望自己可以更加勇敢，更加坚定，更有信心。
继续折腾自己，体验生活。
继续为了自己想要的和自己爱的人奋勇向前。
继续前行，步履不停
A Note Before You Read
This is a long one. About 14,000 characters in the original — plan on at least 15 minutes.
Read it patiently, all the way through. And if you can finish it once, I'd suggest reading it again.
01 Looking Back
Same thing I always say: to honestly acknowledge, face, accept, embrace, and even like this less-than-perfect version of myself — that was one of this year's assignments.
2020 really was hard. It was hard on everyone.
As China made progress against the epidemic in a short time while it exploded across Europe and America — a "plot twist" — the global chatter split into an argument over whether it was "human rights" that were gone or "humans left" who were gone. Counting on the awareness of Western governments and peoples turned out to be counting on nothing; all we can hope for is that a vaccine goes into production soon.
For me, there wasn't much progress in my career, but a lot changed in my life and my understanding — and I saw more clearly into people's hearts.
The three things I kept doing all year were summing up, observing, and thinking: what kind of game is life; what kind of game are career and choice; and what kind of game is the marathon.
And in the stolen moments, I put together my own little "heresy": one center, two basic points, one impossible triangle, and four cardinal principles.
The past year — 2020 especially — was a year of enormous growth in understanding, or maybe more precisely, a harvest that came from a shift in the angle I look at problems from. I'm still lost, but the anxiety is gradually easing, and I'm starting to see the first light on the directions I want to explore.
What the future holds, I don't yet know. Just as no one could have foreseen that this sudden catastrophe would so profoundly change the world, our country, and our lives. Right now, I only want to share how I feel in this moment. A birthday is mostly just a pretext — a convenient marker for taking stock of the time behind me and the world ahead.
At 23, what I told myself was: I'd spent years too fixated on being cool, being smart, being interesting, and it took a lot of wrong turns before I'd admit I'm an unglamorous, boring fool. Better to leave being interesting to the people who genuinely are, and let me be the one standing below the stage, applauding sincerely. Here's hoping the new year could be about being real, being kind, being independent.
At 24, what I told myself was: pay more attention to essentials, less to noise; go all in more, look back less, and don't let your edges get sanded off too fast.
At 25, what I said to myself was: be sharp, be open.
So at 26, I'll say to myself: be patient, be brave, and be constant.
Looking back on the year, I'll give myself a 70.
02 People Are Everything
At work and in life, a few words I've never much liked are "brother," "buddy," "friend." In the north especially, the word gets thrown around far too often, and yet the number of people who actually treat you as a "brother" is vanishingly small. Most are just running their own quiet calculations, using the word to cozy up to someone while plotting how to squeeze some benefit out of the "brother." Everyone you meet is a brother — even deep bonds turn ordinary.
Compared to people who are all warmth from the start, treating everyone like an old acquaintance, I prefer the ones who don't say much at first. But once they decide you're a kindred spirit, they treat you sincerely from then on.
In everyday speech, too, I don't use the word "friend" lightly.
"Acquaintance," "someone I know," "we've crossed paths a few times somewhere" — none of these equal "friend." If someone's a friend, just say plainly they're a "good friend." Over time, the people who naturally gather around you become the ones you genuinely want to draw close to. "Because we're connected, each of us also becomes a little freer."
Loneliness is the default state, and free will is rare and precious. A good relationship is one where you can find the mutual understanding, empathy, and support of kindred spirits, and also keep maintaining and developing your own free will within it. The more like-minded friends you have, the more you realize how rare and precious it is to "come together without forming cliques."
We're all adults; we can tell who genuinely treats you as a friend and who's just fishing for information. Don't fake a whole routine of warm concern just to fish for information — I can see through it. The words may sound nice, but your actions can't lie.
A friend once asked what to do about having fewer and fewer friends after graduating and starting work. Here's the truth: in all my life, I've never met a person who gained more friends the older they got. So you're not really complaining about having fewer friends — at bottom, you're dissatisfied with the quality of your current friendships, and the real reason behind that is that you're not happy with, or satisfied by, your current life.
A friendship, put bluntly, is an exchange. And exchanges come in three kinds:
1: exchange of interests; 2: exchange of feelings; 3: exchange of values.
Minimize the first as much as you can, and maximize the second and third. If everyone around you is only about the first, well, that's too sad a life to bear.
From another angle, friends come in two kinds:
- Interest-based (work, socializing, so-called "connections")
- Feeling-based (shared interests, values, mutual admiration)
The two have different emphases. The former matters during the season when a person needs to engage worldly life, but there's no need to force it — just keep your character sincere and your dealings balanced. The latter's joy and durability last longer. In fact, the people truly capable of helping us are settled long in advance; forcing or scheming for it does little good. The affinity between people should be left to unfold naturally.
What I hope for myself and my friends is this: our personalities can differ, our habits can differ, but we broadly approve of one another's underlying qualities; we won't disappoint each other; we're all learning and living with care, not content to stay put — advancing together on our separate tracks. That's well worth treasuring.
Last year I posted this on Weibo: I'd rather have fewer relationships — or none at all — than keep draining myself trying to hold on to people. My love and my time are both so precious; I'd rather give them all back to myself and to the people who truly deserve it. I've been putting this into practice all year.
One big gain from the epidemic is that it made me understand more clearly: I really do prefer real, singular, deeper social relationships. What I prefer is real people, one by one — people you can sit down and talk and eat with — not so-called contacts and connections trapped inside a phone, with all their tedious, complicated, showy "titles and tags." Too complicated, too tiring. I don't like it. I can't imagine some people around me sorting their Moments audience into thirty-odd groups.
Never lower the priority of family, friends, or the important other. Three or five true confidants beat hundreds of "acquaintances." The number in your contacts, on social media, and your follower count — none of it matters.
Try more to throw "gatherings" with friends, or to talk through the night (only occasionally, of course), until the sun comes up.
A true friend is like the sun — it shines wherever it goes; a surface-level friend is like the moon — different on the first and the fifteenth of the month. Which leads to a corollary: when helping someone, there are only two choices — 1. help without a word of complaint; 2. refuse without leaving any room. Anything else is thankless work that wears you out. Help nine times and refuse once, and it all nets out to one, or even zero.
The biggest realization this year is that most people have never thought about — or thought clearly about — who exactly they're competing with, in life and at work. Who they treat as their peers.
And, too many people really don't know how to make choices or how to switch careers. Most stay at the level of just changing companies and checking the salary; beyond that, there's almost nothing.
Take finance as an example. Over 70% of people — say, those in investment banking (IBD) — will fixate only on PE when they switch, 20% will consider something else (tech, other parts of finance), as though outside of finance and tech there were no other professions or industries in the world. And the reason they choose this way is that they're only watching their peers: the people around them, their seniors, their classmates and friends mostly chose this way, and choosing this way is the safest bet.
Pin down your peers: who exactly are you, and are you prepared to, compete with? What often determines how much a person achieves isn't whether they win or lose any single match, but which tier they've long grown accustomed to competing in; and one of life's great fortunes is finding a worthy opponent. Choose your competitors carefully, because in the end the two of you will very likely "converge."
This realization came after my angle for looking at problems shifted from transactions to people, and I found the harvest was entirely different: once your angle becomes people, the whole "flow of information," "flow of capital," and "flow of goods" passes before your eyes — and that's one source of a god's-eye view. Most people (myself included) never realize that our current jobs turn us, to some degree, into an information hub.
I later discovered I could run a large-scale social experiment — though most people neither know about it nor grasp its significance and importance. You can only ever see what others do; you can never know what they think. And the rules you set for a relationship, others aren't necessarily bound to follow.
Something I've long wanted to say: a lot of so-called investors actually have no insight, and a lot of investment firms are hollow too, so don't be dazzled or intimidated by so-called titles. That's really just another kind of invisible workplace PUA. That's why I've never wasted much time or energy on these people. So to all the friends who used to ask me which investors in the industry are worth knowing — I can nearly give you my answer.
At work, plenty of people teach you, and have taught you, how to "get things done." You think every day about how to do the things in front of you well, and about doing more. That's not wrong — absolutely right. But one thing gets overlooked by many: "reading people."
Doing things creates value; reading people finds the lever that amplifies value.
As group CEO, Daniel Zhang asks himself two questions every year. First: which people did I find for the group this year — note the keyword is "find," not "hire." Second: which new businesses did I cultivate for the group this year, or which new tracks did I open up.
On the eve of Double 11 in 2012, Jack Ma gave Daniel Zhang eight characters. He said, Zhang, right now you "use people to do things," but you need to move toward "using people to do things" the other way around. "Doing things by using people" means you've thought through exactly how the work should be done; but the further you go, the bigger the team, the more complex the organization, and you have to think about how to design the structure of every block of the whole organization.
To all the friends who are starting a company or planning to — I very sincerely suggest you make hiring a top-two priority for the company; the CEO, the number one, absolutely has to experience and feel it firsthand.
An adult's "cleverness" has two determinants: one is the quality of the information they obtain, the other is the ability to interpret it (including but not limited to comprehension, analysis, application, and so on).
Many assume the second matters more than the first — and that's because people generally only compare themselves with their peers, and they have no idea who they should even count as peers.
But the fact is: the ability to interpret information really is the most important factor distinguishing people at the same level. What truly distinguishes different levels, though — and lifts you between levels — is the quality of the information you get. In the face of a gap in information quality, the ability to interpret information is almost negligible, barely worth mentioning.
Most people are, every day, disturbed by all kinds of trivial worries, minute and specific work, and utterly meaningless socializing. Forget "think big, think long, think deep" — most people don't even do the basic "think"; they coast forward on basic inertia. And that inertia is those so-called everyday sources of information.
So, from time to time, examine what your core sources of information are, and whether they're actually good enough. The logic is simple: if you don't read and don't cultivate quality relationships, then all the information you take in every day is just your dead-end job's little patch of ground; the public accounts scheming to brainwash you and sell you things; the variety shows; and whatever's taught to you by "friends" who don't even know what they're doing themselves. Day after day, how could your brain not go haywire?
Of course, everyone needs to take in entertainment — light, forget-as-soon-as-you-see-it stuff. Of course we need it. But even among entertainment, some of it nourishes you and some of it drains you — you get what I mean? Some of it doesn't even rise to the level of entertainment or information; at most it's gossip, of extremely low value. And which of it do you "let" reshape you bit by bit: your character, your understanding, your outlook, your scope.
One method for filtering information sources: stay away from anyone who has to offer at least a little of their own commentary and opinion on every single thing, every hot topic. If a person "knows a bit of everything," then they "know nothing."
Keep those trivial, boring, annoying things and that garbage from occupying your mind and energy every day. At work especially, pay less attention to the things that don't matter; lighten your cognitive load. Cut out the things that distract you. They don't matter.
One thing I've kept doing over the past two years is continually subtracting — probing the edges of my boundaries and interests. This year I've taken subtracting close to its extreme.
People ask me how I subtract. Roughly these:
- Turn off all app notifications.
- Quit every WeChat group that's noisy all day.
- Unfollow a lot of public accounts.
- Close off Moments (post only, never scroll).
- Unsubscribe from all texts.
- Fix my wardrobe, to cut down on the agonizing and the choices about what to wear (I told Daxiong I plan to start practicing this next year).
So my WeChat unread count has never hit double digits; I don't have many missed calls or text messages; other than WeChat, I keep app notifications off. Big blocks of time are all mine: reading, running, writing, thinking, spacing out, sleeping on time. Life is simple — monotonous, full, repetitive.
(Figure in original — last year's vs. now: 554 public accounts followed → 219.)
Trust me: those things, all of them, aren't that important. Not looking, not scrolling, unfollowing, not associating with a lot of people — none of it will have any effect on your life. This year I tried a lot of things — oh, and this one too: sometimes a friend asks me what I think about something, and I say I have no view.
You have to keep telling yourself: the vast majority of things in the world don't concern you, and you have no ability to judge them anyway. Brexit, the price of gold rising, oil crashing, so-and-so's affair — none of it has much to do with most people. We don't need to have views and opinions on most questions; we only need correct, defensible views on the small number of things that truly matter. On the vast majority of things, these few will do: "I don't know," "I haven't thought it through," "I don't care."
"Staying ignorant" is, in a sense, harder than "knowing everything."
In fact, there's no need to have any view at all. Because slowly you'll find that, in a lifetime, the things we genuinely need to have a real view on are so, so few. Don't care about meaningless things; only pay attention to what you should truly pay attention to.
Over the years, the people who scroll and read all kinds of analyst reports all day, who spend enormous time debating Brexit or the Baoneng–Vanke fight and other big financial events, who share their opinions and inspirational takes on Moments and Weibo every day, endlessly striving to spot the next wave and the next opportunity — they have a keen nose for trends, a rich supply of talking points, and speak in ready-made paragraphs. But after all these years, they've still achieved nothing, wallets still empty. Do you remember the loudest news headline or trending term on your phone lately? You probably can't recall 90% of them; all you can recall is how wildly popular they once were. As the saying goes: flowers in brocade, oil poured on a raging fire.
Reducing how instantly you take in the hottest information can steady your mind and put your attention on what truly matters. Trust me: the opinions and information of the vast majority of people are never worth a look.
Do you want this carved on your tombstone after you're a hundred years gone: this person loved to read, dozens of public accounts a day, hundreds of Weibo posts; followed a thousand hot takes and celebrity scandals; fluently used each year's internet catchphrases; attended thousands of work gatherings and obligatory dinners; entered the ICU a few dozen times. If that's what you want, then go for it.
Not everything is worth discussing; to open your mouth and bring it up is an insult to yourself. The zeal of "every sound reaching your ears, every matter your concern" long ago dissolved into the passing years. Turn "loathing" into "distancing," "the material" into "taste," "loving fiercely" into "embracing," and "grand ideals" into "what's within reach."
I've kept Moments closed for so long (post only, never scroll). There isn't much stuff in my life. Resonance isn't that important either — "striking a chord" is the easiest business there is for grabbing traffic.
(Figure in original — a screenshot from Thirteen Invitations: "I'm less and less interested in reaching consensus.")
You have to overcome your vanity, your urge to show off, and deal with the little cleverness that's forever itching to grab the spotlight. I no longer much want to chase the most cutting-edge, most fashionable concepts; I only care about what I genuinely love, and experiencing it with care — which is also what I've been looking for and doing all along.
People have asked me before: you don't follow variety shows, you don't check Moments, you don't watch this or that — what do you even do when you've got nothing on? What happens when you have nothing in common with the people around you?
a. There's far too much to do, and there's simply never enough time. On my Douban list sit more books and film documentaries than I could ever finish, all kinds of sports, so many places I want to go.
b. As for "having nothing to talk about with friends," I'm not worried at all. It's the real shared topics that ultimately draw the friends you click with closer, letting the two of you converge and settle toward each other — instead of endlessly maintaining, at your own expense, bonds that scatter and vanish in the blink of an eye.
You have to believe that your true good friends won't care whether you liked or commented on their posts; and your so-called connections care even less. Meeting up offline beats social-media likes any day. The moment you're always trying to get something out of people, you start drifting apart. Connections aren't something others can give you — they're how many people you can help. Don't spend your time on this stuff.
A person really only has two things to do each day: know yourself, and love yourself. Everything else is a tool leading to these two.
The ideal state of life is to be like Amazon's stock price, not Tesla's — a long stretch of "quiet, unremarkable persistence," accompanied by being misunderstood by the vast majority. But as long as you keep at the right thing, the world will eventually come to know the value of what you did.
And of course, if what you're doing is expanding the frontier, you should have absolute confidence in your own "underlying operating system," and take your "peers" not understanding what you're doing as a compliment.
03 Ten Years to Forge One Sword
One of my biggest feelings this year is that a lot of people (so-called smart people especially) don't actually make good choices — or, in the language of the industry, they play and play until they've played themselves into a finite game. This has to do with mindset; it has little to do with whether you graduated from a top school or how high your IQ is. They only look one move ahead, with no more macro, big-picture grasp or feel.
The main task of the first ten years of a career (probably the only one) is to figure out who — and what kind of people — you want to work with over the next fifty.
Among Elon Musk's life advice for young people, there's one that's word-for-word identical to Buffett's: work with people you respect.
We've all seen the line "ten years to swing one sword." But there's a prerequisite: swinging one sword in ten years requires forging that sword for ten years.
(Figure in original — a book excerpt, a Bezos quote: "Don't just think about what will change; think even more about what won't.")
This year I discussed career and job choices with a lot of friends, and I gained a great deal. Many people hold a view or tendency along the lines of: do what you love, choose the job that pays most. This view, or this way of putting it, is inaccurate.
Interests and hobbies are the best teachers, but they're very likely not your best main career — because liking is about pleasing yourself, while work is about pleasing others. And you need to be clear and draw a distinction: a liking and a love aren't the same thing, right? Loving to do something, and doing something because it lets you briefly escape your real anxieties and troubles, are two different things. Is the decision you're making a pursuit of what you want more? Or an escape from what you don't want?
So what should you do? Do what you're good at, and what you genuinely have a passion for.
The thing you're good at, you can very likely do well and have at least some interest in — it's just that everyone's degree and ratio differ. And over time, your confidence keeps building and rising, so that even the things you're less good at and don't enjoy gradually come more easily to you.
And confidence is like money. Only when you have some can you have more, and you can only give it to yourself — no one else can truly hand it to you.
The people who can actually last a long time in an industry are those who've found, either now or for the long term, an industry and a career they love. You have to believe that money can never keep driving you forward. Read what I'm saying carefully: keep driving.
Whether you're at ByteDance/Alibaba/Tencent, or Sequoia/Hillhouse; whether you're at MBB, or at a startup, or a hedge fund; whether you're from Tsinghua/Peking/Fudan/Jiaotong or a top American Ivy, or one of the most ordinary of the masses. In the end, you're all fighting the maniacs of the industry. If you're not good at it, and have no love or passion for it, you won't out-fight them. After all, love outlasts the long years.
Why do adults love going to Disneyland too, not just kids? In life and at work, day after day, we're required, actively and passively, to be adults — to control our emotions. Only here can we "completely" be a child, and "enjoy loving something."
Goals determine direction; when a goal is unclear or unquantifiable, it can't truly land or be carried out. Going to a certain company shouldn't be the goal — it's only a means. What you should do is find the goal behind the means.
If you haven't found what you're good at, your passion, your own love, you can only keep job-hopping and then, after each hop, sink back into stillness and confusion. If you stopped searching when you were young, then don't lament and regret it when you're old.
(Figure in original — a WeChat chat screenshot: "Are you like this too? Start looking for the next job the day you start this one.")
Money matters a lot, but it shouldn't become the only variable in the equation. Job-hopping is a choice and a means, not an end. Going to a certain company shouldn't be treated as an end either. Liking something and being unwilling to give up aren't the same thing, right? Trust me: a person can't wrong themselves for a whole lifetime. Do what you want to do.
I've seen quite a few people like this, around me and in the industry — they all seem cast from the same mold. Here's an example: most of them went abroad in their high school years, did undergrad at HYPSM, went to investment banking after graduating, did a two-year MBA, then went into PE and hedge funds, hopped into a company to learn how real industry works, got noticed by the big boss and moved to head up the Asia region. Past 30, their career has already peaked — call it "reached the end" — and of course they're totally set for money too. And yet the two questions lodged in their hearts never changed:
- What on earth do I actually want to do with my life?
- I've made my name so young (30 Under 30) — why am I still not especially happy?
On this, Harvard once ran a famous related experiment:
A Harvard professor asked his students to raise their hands if they'd felt especially happy — or ecstatic — on April 2nd. Why April 2nd? Because April 2nd is the day the school sends out offers or rejections. That was the day they got those notices — the letter telling them they'd been admitted to Harvard.
There were over a thousand students in the class, and nearly everyone raised a hand. Then he asked: how many of you, at that moment, felt you'd be happy for the rest of your life — keep your hands up. Nearly everyone still had their hands up. Why? Because their friends, the media, and society all told them the same thing: maybe you're not happy now, but don't worry — get into Harvard, Berkeley, these top schools, and you'll be delighted, you'll find happiness. Why? Because getting into a famous university means you're a great success, people will think highly of you, you'll get a great job, make a lot of money after graduating, be enormously successful, and after that you'll have all the happiness.
Then he asked another question: if you still feel happy today, now that you're inside Harvard, keep your hands up. The professor added: it doesn't have to be ecstatic — just happy is enough. Nearly everyone put their hands down. 80% of Harvard students not only feel unhappy — they've felt seriously depressed over the past year.
80% of Harvard students have experienced, at least once, being so depressed they couldn't study. This isn't the ordinary mood swing we talk about casually — it's the kind of depression where you literally can't go to school, can't function. They'd once thought they'd be happy for their whole lives; they'd once thought success was the secret to happiness, or its main cause. It isn't.
Why do you see so many people in this world who are enormously successful yet enormously unhappy? So many superstars, singers, actors who aren't happy, who take drugs, drink too much, buy sex. They have everything — why aren't they happy?
Because all their lives, everyone told them the same story: even if you're unhappy now, don't worry — once you succeed, you'll be happy. So when they did succeed, they could have whoever they wanted; people respected them, worshiped them. When they'd just succeeded, they felt it was the most wonderful feeling in the world. But before long they slid right back to where they'd been.
They came to feel that happiness was an illusion, and that an illusion can't last. So in the end they weren't just unhappy — they no longer even believed the lie that success brings happiness. So — others' judgments of you can be very subjective, but your judgment of yourself has to be objective. Knowing your own weight matters.
Do you know the difference between sadness and depression? The difference is this: depression is sadness with no hope left. Depression is sadness that has lost hope.
So the enormously successful have exactly this feeling — they may feel sad, and they no longer hold any hope. Because they know: even success won't make them happier. So they drink or take drugs, wanting to escape reality. They try every way to overcome this feeling of unhappiness, and yet they don't know how to work through it.
Happiness isn't brought about by success. Of course, if I'm poor and have no money for food, then achieving success would bring us greater happiness. But once our basic needs are met, the relationship between the two is no longer causal.
The relationship between success and happiness isn't what people imagine — it's the exact opposite: it's not that success is the cause and happiness the effect. It's that happiness is the cause and success the effect.
So do you still think that going to some company, some industry, some school will solve your problems and predicaments? That's impossible.
I've been in the industry a good four-plus years now, and I've watched many investors grow from analyst and associate into MD or partner. I've also met plenty who entered with first-rate academic credentials and a high starting point, only to later leave the investment world in silence, or gradually fade into obscurity.
Their traits are more or less: arrogance, lack of patience, switching interests too fast, lack of humility, being too utilitarian. And I've also seen plenty of outstanding partners who started from a lower point — ordinary degrees, not handsome either — but who focused on their own research area, kept pushing for years, and finally saw the clouds part and the moon come out.
As I've gotten older, I've slowly come to feel that patience is quite simply the most important virtue after kindness. And being steadfast, and being able to meet people where they are, are two such rare and precious qualities.
Whether at work or in life, or in love, the same holds: being good to others is an ability. Happiness is an ability too, and confidence is a rare ability. They're all a gift, not a skill learned after the fact.
You have to know yourself. Know your game.
Economics has a concept called the "impossible trinity." It says a country cannot simultaneously achieve free capital flow, an independent monetary policy, and a stable exchange rate. Put plainly, you can pick at most two of the three — you can't have it all.
This year I dreamed up a theory of my own: the "impossible triangle of life" — wealth, fame, happiness. You can only pick two; you have to give up one. Most people have only one corner, or none; a few have two; and the ones who truly have all three aren't actually happy — they carry enormous pressure, responsibility, and burden.
(Figure in original — a diagram of the "impossible triangle of life": wealth, fame, happiness.)
You have to believe: you don't want success as much as you imagine, and you can't master money as well as you imagine either.
Those big shots you admire and respect, those celebrities, someone like Jack Ma — or even someone as formidable as Elon Musk, a rare cross-disciplinary genius — he has bipolar disorder too.
All beings suffer.
They're actually working and striving for their own love and passion. Otherwise they'd have collapsed countless times already. Thinking of this, in that instant I felt I'd finally understood why, in biographies, people tirelessly repeat that meeting the partner they've spent decades with was the luckiest thing in their lives. So maybe wandering is only the political correctness of youth. In the end, you still find that having someone who loves you, a home that waits for you, weathering the storms together and sharing the world's splendor — that's the happiest thing of all.
So once you've thought this through, you can go make your choice. The impossible triangle of life — which two are you actually chasing?
(Figure in original — an excerpt card: what happens to people is mostly the result of people's own choices.)
Let me expand a bit on chasing happiness. Happiness comes in different kinds and layers — some is a simpler, mild happiness; some has the "worn-out" flavor of having climbed through wave after wave. Happiness comes in three kinds: dopamine happiness, serotonin happiness, and endorphin happiness.
Dopamine happiness is fleeting. Serotonin happiness makes us positive, but a lack of it drives us into anxiety. At bottom, only endorphin happiness is lasting — it brings satisfaction and fulfillment, unforgettable long after. And how do you get endorphins? You need to do one thing for a long, continuous stretch. There's a magical point in time: before that point, you feel utterly exhausted, but cross it and your body fills with energy again, and you feel lifted again. That's endorphins. So which kind do you actually need?
There are plenty of similar "impossible triangles" in life: the college "impossible triangle" — you can only pick two of the three S's (study, social, sleep); the restaurant "impossible triangle" — tasty, cheap, uncrowded; the partner "impossible triangle" — good-looking, impressive, dependable. So in the end, life's arithmetic is nothing more than picking two of three.
Of course, the "impossible triangle" isn't a perfectly complete model — you can certainly find counterexamples, and you can even chase things that "satisfy all three." But in the vast majority of cases, the "impossible triangle" can help us clear our thinking, face ourselves honestly, make better decisions, and give up certain unrealistic fantasies.
The quality of a life's happiness comes from the quality of its decisions.
As with completing any big task, the most important thing for an individual of limited ability is to first decide what not to do. A "Not-to-do list" matters ten times more than a "To-do list."
So it's not really about changing jobs and hopping — it's fundamentally about choosing your life strategy: figuring out what you absolutely refuse to give up, and then bravely giving up everything else.
There's another point that's very hard in China, and that many people don't dare to do: we're used to judging others by "what you have," not by "who you are."
(Figure in original — an excerpt card: Aristotle said happiness comes from being able to exercise the abilities we're good at... each of us comes into this world with a golden spoon.)
Teacher Liu Fei once said something I strongly agree with: being liked for your fame, prestige, family, hometown, property, income, profession, company, or even job level is actually a bad thing. Because those are conferred; they're too easily replaced. Being liked because someone finds you interesting, lovable, witty, sincere, curious, kind, and passionate about life — that would simply be wonderful.
Can't agree more.
You're not afraid of turning 30 — you're afraid of turning 30 with nothing to show for it. Don't drift with the crowd and make choices like everyone else. Bravely and firmly explore what you're good at and what you love. Being brave doesn't mean daring to travel alone, daring to go alone to dangerous places like slums, daring to go alone to Antarctica.
True bravery is daring to ignore the eyes of those around you, daring to face what your heart truly needs, daring to keep holding onto what you love through the long years, doing the work you love, living the life you love — daring, amid the incomprehension of those around you, to still live cheerfully, free and unbound.
Water is water when the waves surge, and water when it's calm. Water knows that, born as water, both turbulence and stillness are itself, and there's nothing wrong with either. So water does what water should do, and waits for the next change to come. A stone thrown into water is bound to raise waves, but water doesn't mind. It knows that no matter how the outside world stirs it, it has the ability to return to calm and to mirror the reality around it once more.
These few years in your twenties are precisely the age for exploring. Neither you nor I have wasted them. I've seen too many people falter, too many people regret, too many people unable to let go — all of them only waking up at the turning point of 29, or 30.
Otherwise, all you can do is live day after day, year after year, with no light left in your eyes, no life in you. Spend ten years doing one thing, accumulating slowly, water wearing through stone. Start at 20 and it takes ten years; start at 30 and it still takes ten; start at 40 and it still takes ten; start at 50 and it still takes ten. The heavens won't speed up your success just because you feel you've gotten old. No matter when you begin, the steps you can't skip, you can't skip — not one.
Someone once asked: do you believe in the head or the heart? I said I believe in time.
There's no such thing in this world as peers, averages, or social standards. There is only me, the thing in front of me, and the road under my feet.
04 I've Felt the Wind You've Felt — Does That Count as Meeting
People who can do things to the extreme can, in a certain sense, give someone an extreme experience in love too. An important direction I kept exploring and learning this year is still intimacy.
The sudden epidemic turned everything into online mode — relationships included. But it turned out that no matter how advanced tech and online life get, the romance of being in person can never be replaced.
The eyes, the gestures, the voice, the scent, the expression, the tone of speech, the gait — these are all parts that online can never replace or make perceptible. You'll have an instinctive read on all the information: "Is this someone I want to see again?"
What you see on a social account is forever just the tip of the iceberg; those fragments aren't enough to give you the most basic understanding of a person. Another direction I'm working hard on: drastically reducing online life, and making offline life rich and full enough.
On this point I've always been anti-internet-ification — it's the old-fashioned side of me. So it's one reason I increasingly don't want to chat on WeChat, and would even lean toward a long in-person talk instead.
For me, people are like this, and shops are too. Only when you're physically in that space do you truly feel the connection between you and it — "Is this a shop I want to come back to?" And these most instinctive perceptions have nothing to do with how technology develops in the future.
I once saw a question: do guys today, once they're out of school, still earnestly pursue girls? By what means, and for how long?
My feeling this year is: this is, to some degree, a false question. Pursuing a girl doesn't actually take much effort or trouble. The key is that the girl the guy is pursuing also likes him, or has some feeling for him, so the two are in a half-yielding state. If a girl needs a guy to prove he really likes her before she's willing, then this girl doesn't like him all that much either. So — the right girl needs no pursuing, and no amount of effort, earnestness, or striving pursuing the wrong girl will do any good.
Pursue a girl with sincerity, but don't get fixated, and above all don't get contentious. To express bravely and pursue generously is sincerity; to cut losses in time and take the initiative to let go is respect.
And the right reason to marry should be: I'm on the road to becoming a whole person, and at some point in the future, I feel what's in my cup has become so abundant that I need to find someone to share the overflow with.
One feeling this year: a man, once he's thought it through, will want to marry; a woman, the more clearly she thinks it through, the less she wants to marry.
Sex is bodily life, following the pleasure principle; love is spiritual life, following the ideal principle; marriage is social life, following the reality principle. They're three completely different games, played by different rules. And the difficulty of marriage lies in unifying all three on the same person — not letting the numbing seduction and pleasure of the familiar, nor the trivialities of reality, erode love's passion and ideal.
Many people say that in modern society, marriage has gone from mutual support and reliance to a partnership for living. Less warmth, more weighing of gains and losses.
There's some truth to that, because the times have changed — women's status and power have risen, and their choices have multiplied. That's the change. But what hasn't changed still hasn't changed: marriage is like any other relationship. It needs both sides to yield and to give, to provide nourishment and support, or it can't stay balanced. A partner can't save us. For a relationship to last, both sides' energy has to be equal, the heart they put in equal — not control, dependence, monopoly, or taking.
Is there really, in this world, a love so rare that "a single meeting of golden wind and jade dew outshines countless moments in the human world"? I think there must be. It's just that precious feelings need a precious heart to water and hold them. Ask yourself: are we that kind of person? Do we (ourselves) have that kind of heart? Look at the heart with which we usually treat the relationships of this world.
(Figure in original.)
Money, fame, and status can never matter more than true feeling. Once you've had someone's true heart, you'll no longer want, or need, anything else. If you're lucky enough to meet someone who makes your heart race, you should treasure them — not test them.
Two kinds of people are terrifying in the marriage market: the man who thinks too well of himself, and the woman keeping one foot out the door. And the market is precisely flooded with too many such boys and girls.
There's a Q&A on Zhihu I strongly agree with: why can't so many outstanding women in first-tier cities find a boyfriend?
The college entrance exam has five subjects. If you want someone whose score in every subject is at least as high as yours, then typically their total will be ten or twenty points above yours. Add one more condition — math at least ten points higher than yours — and that person's total might be thirty-plus points above yours.
So a lot of people call someone whose every subject is no lower than their own "about my level," but we don't usually see it that way — we usually look at the total. So all these outstanding people want someone whose every subject is no lower than their own, while mistakenly thinking their requirement is "someone about my level," and naturally they can't find anyone. Having high standards and not finding someone isn't the scary part; the scary part is mistakenly believing your standards are very low. Scarier still is when someone points it out and you immediately jump up, going on about how marriage isn't a necessity — that's even scarier.
Here's another gain this year: at work, do more of what you're good at. In love, do more of what you're not good at. Communicating and expressing feelings, for instance. For couples who've been dating more than three months, the woman can, once a week or once a month — or when you're out having fun and eating on the weekend — ask the man one question afterward: how did you feel about me today? 80% of men can't answer.
Also, a point many women stress these days is that they need emotional value. Don't think only women need emotional value. Men need it just as much; men are just less good at expressing it.
We're all human, and life isn't easy for anyone — men need care and looking-after too. So a warm, attentive woman can often win a man's heart. A little bit of playful fussiness now and then is charm; but if you're self-centered every single moment, then love's scales are bound to be impossible to keep balanced for long. Everyone wants to be loved, and also wants to fully develop their own individuality and self-actualize. Can you, on this road, help and support the other person, instead of always scolding and blaming them?
Thinking of this, I suddenly realized that what my exes left me was the most precious of all: companionship, support, and confidence. Which are also what a man needs most.
In one instant I suddenly understood, with a pang: people can never possess each other; all we have is a chance encounter, and then a stretch of time spent together. It's just that sometimes you wish that stretch could stretch on forever. But in the end, we all still part, and the passion all still dissolves.
But "having once had" matters far more than "having always." Forever-and-ever is overrated. Loving fiercely and to the fullest is enough; good times never lie.
Last year I posted something related on Weibo: I really want a love out of the 1980s, where communication is letters, phone calls, meals, playing music, reading, outings. The heart-stretching wait for each letter; the tender gazes while playing music. Smartphones don't deserve sweet love.
Sometimes I think — being a "straight man" is great. No need to rack your brain pursuing this one and that one; you can miss a lot of sexual hints and put the time toward more interesting things. And no need to second-guess everything, no need to learn how to flatter or depend.
I still haven't fully figured out what my strengths are, but I said this to Teacher Sui: I know that taking things too earnestly is one of my flaws — when others are joking, I "fall right into it." But thinking about it again, it's not necessarily a flaw: ① it's the real me; ② earnestness is, most of the time, a strength.
Likewise, a big feeling this year: a person has to admit their own ignorance and inability. For instance, when a friend confides in you and you can't comfort them, don't force the comfort — you'll only make things worse. When you don't know or understand something, don't force an understanding, don't speak or comment on it. On this point, I'm not good enough or gifted enough.
When an adult chooses a partner, they're choosing where their future time gets spent. And the best partner is an ally on your life's battlefield.
Have you figured out how you'll choose?
05 Running All Over the World, and Endlessly Getting to Know It Anew
The best way to keep up relationships with fun, worthwhile good friends is to spend more time on yourself. And my choice is the marathon.
Reading is the one center; travel and the marathon are the two basic points. And the three share one thing in common: they're all very private acts and choices.
Another question friends often ask me: running so far without getting paid, so exhausting — what's the point?
Physiologically, it's precisely because it's exhausting that, to suppress the pain, the body secretes endorphins that make you happy. Secrete enough, and mid-run you feel filled with power and confidence — more than that, a kind of about-to-take-flight joy, following the rhythm, keeping the beat, the devil's cadence. That's Runner's High.
Pain is inevitable, suffering is optional. To many, the marathon is Pain, but to a runner, the marathon isn't Suffering — you only get it once you've run it.
There's a line from Run with the Wind: "After all, a person can't share pace and rhythm with anyone else; it all belongs only to yourself."
Whoever runs knows. The agreed-upon pace is fake, the promised growing-together-forever is only an ideal state; some people get dropped and blown up along the way, and some relationships simply reach their end. Distance running, like life, has loneliness — writ large — as its base color.
I'm very grateful I chose running (and, of course, basketball and badminton too). What running has taught me is far more than simply getting fitter.
(Figure in original.)
Running taught me to converse with my own body. When I run, I can listen to the voice inside me, feel the step-by-step push forward, experience and control my breathing, feel the changes in my body.
Running gives me more chances to be alone with myself. When I run, I set aside, for a while, all the problems of life and work, and put all my attention on myself and my surroundings: Have you finished a high-intensity session on a summer night over thirty degrees? Have you quietly held on and finished your training mileage through a cold rainy night? Have you run through an early-morning campus in the snow? This kind of solitary time is beautiful and extravagant, painful and enjoyable all at once.
Running made me realize I can become faster and better. As ordinary people, maybe we can't become champions, but we can refresh our PBs again and again, and raise our own limits. This runner's-high sense of achievement can't be bought with money. In the instant of improving your time and crossing the line, you feel that all the effort, sweat, and work before were so, so worth it.
There are plenty of reasons not to run; running needs no reason — just lift your legs and go. Run and run, and your little universe catches fire like something possessed; no matter how many people are running around you, you never feel small or inferior — you just feel, from the bottom of your heart: "I really just want to win!" Even though you don't even know what it is you want to win.
Running, to me, is a kind of practice — Running Monk — one of my life creeds, keeping me from ever forgetting why I started running, and my resolve to keep running on.
06 Wish List
Plenty of people wish you a happy birthday, but few care whether you're actually happy that day.
And what I want is true happiness.
Above I mentioned one center; two basic points; three impossible triangles. There's one thing left — my four personal cardinal principles: sincerity; kindness; steadfastness; bravery. Sincerity comes first.
I tried sketching a user profile of myself:
A prism of a personality
A word-loving homebody from another planet
A sport-loving brand junkie
A travel-loving curious kid
A book-loving Harry Potter fan
A long-term little sun with intermittent little glooms
Addicted to new things, restraining my curiosity
An ordinary mortal among the teeming masses
Hoping to become an interesting soul
This time I want to change the format of the wish list: not divided by year, but bounded by what I want to accomplish right now. Cross it off when it's done, add to it when there's something new.
1: World peace in my lifetime (go ahead and laugh — only with peace can we go do everything else).
2: Running: BQ, Boston, Berlin, Tokyo, New York, Chicago; 5K sub-20; 10K sub-37; full marathon: 2:42.
3: Travel: international — the remaining continents; domestic — Xinjiang, Tibet, Yunnan.
4: Tennis: try, before I turn 30, to see one of the four Grand Slams once (with this epidemic it feels hard — 35 seems more realistic).
5: Music festivals: check off a music festival.
6: Keep collecting the UK editions of the Harry Potter books in English.
7: Keep catching their concerts: Bon Jovi; Jonathan Lee; Rene Liu; Fish Leong.
There are still a hundred ways of living I want to try, to experience, to go through, to feel.
Caring about the process, and about the result.
Caring about the individual, and about humanity.
Hoping I can be braver, steadier, more confident.
Keep tinkering with myself, keep experiencing life.
Keep charging forward for what I want and for the people I love.
Keep going, one step after another, never stopping.