The Perplexities of Our Generation

Chinese Motivation Speech

Translated from here

Self-Introduction

I'm from Dalian, and attended Dalian No. 24 High School. Because I was quite lackadaisical with my studies at the time, I chose to study abroad after graduating from high school. This is actually a secret that many undergraduate students who study abroad can't admit - I transferred between several schools and eventually graduated from the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, majoring in investment and financial derivatives.

During school, I was obsessed with stock trading and remained as scattered in my studies as ever. I failed to become one of those "returnees who gave up high-paying Wall Street jobs to resolutely return to China," which is quite regrettable, because frankly, no Wall Street company was willing to hire me. Coincidentally, in the two years before graduation, the stock market and foreign exchange market performed well, so I made a little capital. Thus, I decided to return to China to do some business. Now I'm in the restaurant business in Dalian, currently owning 4 cheesecake shops and 3 huoshao (baked flatbread) shops.

Introduction

This is my first time giving a speech to so many people since graduating from university, and frankly speaking, I'm extremely nervous. Although when I was young, I had fantasized many times about being able to share with young friends how I went from having nothing to reaching the pinnacle of life after achieving success and fame, then earnestly telling everyone that people shouldn't live like grass but should live like trees, that only eagles and snails can reach the top of pyramids, and that my success can be replicated by you too, etc. But after turning 26, I suddenly realized a serious problem: my life might not achieve great accomplishments after all. So when the TEDxDUFE team found me and said it didn't matter that I just run small eateries, they were still willing to provide me with such an opportunity to exchange thoughts with many people - how excited I was! Since my company hasn't gone public yet, it's not yet time to tell stories about grass and trees, eagles and snails, sleeping on floors and collecting cans. Today, I just want to share with you several questions that have troubled me and some friends around me for over a decade, and my perspectives on these questions after experiencing some upheavals and setbacks.

Can hard work and struggle really make dreams come true?

Everyone can now imagine Teacher Wang Feng sitting in his swivel chair, looking at you affectionately and asking, "What is your dream?" Teacher Stephen Chow's line "If people don't have dreams, what's the difference between them and salted fish?" is said to have inspired several generations. Dreams are so important that they're practically a beacon of life. Successful people succeed for various reasons, but they all never forget to tell you that no matter what, never forgetting their dreams is the primary reason for their success. So much so that our generation's most common understanding of life's meaning lies in persisting with dreams and ultimately realizing them. But there's one thing few people are willing to face: most people's dreams will never - that's right, never - be realized.

You heard correctly - most people's dreams will never be realized.

Let me first share one of my previous dreams. In college, I was passionate about all kinds of gambling games and was a regular at the casino near school. My gambling career started with the most basic casino game - roulette. The roulette has numbers 1 to 36 and two zeros, with odds of 1 to 36. Numbers 1 to 36 are divided into red and black, with red/black betting odds of 1 to 1. As anyone who has received nine years of compulsory education knows, each moment when the roulette starts spinning is a purely independent random event. But the charm of gambling lies in the fact that when you're actually in the casino and see red coming up four times in a row, almost everyone will want to put their chips on black. My dream at the time was to crack the mystery within this. My initial strategy was very simple: when odd numbers came up three times in a row, I'd bet on even; when red came up three times in a row, I'd bet on black. Incredibly, while strictly executing this strategy, not only did I escape unscathed in my first few casino visits, I made quite a bit each time. This created an illusion in me that perhaps the game had patterns to follow, and I could see the pinnacle of life beckoning to me in the distance. Of course, you can all guess the final ending - after experiencing 18 consecutive even numbers and 21 consecutive blacks, I obediently returned all the money I had previously earned to the casino.

Later I learned that my foolish dream was called the gambler's fallacy, which I won't elaborate on here. But it had profound meaning for me - I finally understood that in the face of purely random events, all patterns are meaningless.

Very few things in life are like roulette, belonging to purely random events - for example, the lottery. But almost every lottery winner will tell you how much energy they spent studying past numbers, researching historical patterns, how much hard work they put in, and finally achieved success. In reality, even for things purely dominated by randomness, as long as the participant base is large enough, low-probability events will always occur. Interestingly, almost all beneficiaries of random events will attribute results completely determined by luck to their own efforts. Not only the participants themselves, but observers will think so too. Take, for example, the champion of The Voice of China.

All the things we encounter in life can basically be divided into three categories: the first type is purely determined by randomness, such as Brownian motion and roulette gambling; the second type is purely determined by ability, such as CET-6 exams and 110-meter hurdles; the third type, which we most commonly encounter, is determined by both ability and randomness, such as entrepreneurship, investment, romance, or dreams.

The reason I'm deeply tired of motivational masters always telling young people to pursue dreams at any cost is that most people's dreams, while not purely lottery tickets, are definitely dominated by randomness. In the face of powerful randomness, no matter how much hard work you put in, it's like staying by the roulette table day and night hoping to penetrate its patterns. I mentioned The Voice of China champion earlier - Zhang Bichen's "You Are My Destiny" really got to me. But at that moment, how many girls in China could sing as well as her or even better? If you really made becoming The Voice champion your life's dream, you'd spend your whole life in pain. I personally really like Huang Bo, but I would never use him as an example to encourage a young person with my kind of looks to pursue an acting dream at any cost - note the phrase "at any cost." Because whether it's singing or acting, no amount of effort can only make you excellent - there are no quantifiable evaluation standards. To become a star in the spotlight, randomness is far more important than ability.

I think that when a person is young, being able to clearly distinguish the proportion of randomness in everything they do and being able to accept it peacefully is, in my view, the most valuable wealth.

So in your dreams, how important a role does luck play? When you deeply perceive that the randomness of this matter might not favor you, are you still willing to persist? For me, dreams are always worth pursuing persistently, but I can very peacefully accept that they may never be realized.

Since even dreams can't be realized, what else is worth working hard for?

Around this time last year, I posted a Weibo.

"I've been reminding myself of one thing all these years: never move yourself with your own actions. Most people's apparent efforts are just the result of stupidity. What's worth boasting about - staying up all night reading until dawn, sleeping only a few hours for several days straight, how long it's been since you had a day off? If these things are worth bragging about, then anyone on Foxconn's assembly line works harder than you. People inevitably have natural self-pity emotions; only by staying constantly clear-headed can you see where real value lies."

The viral spread of this passage online was beyond my expectations. Even more unexpected was that I saw quite a few harsh comments, and some people seriously wrote me some rather profound words: "When you have your own light, don't blow out others' candles. You can't negate others just because of your own dislikes." Rather baffling, isn't it? Even if you just heard my previous thoughts on randomness, you'd know I never think effort is meaningless. Quite the contrary, I've always believed that before your ability reaches a certain level, you don't even qualify to face randomness. Zhang Bichen could win The Voice championship thanks to luck, but if it were Yang Mi, the judges wouldn't just refuse to turn around - they might run away directly.

But now the problem is: what exactly counts as valuable effort? This can start from that Weibo post of mine. Around this time last year, my friend and I were considering doing some clothing business in Daqing and decided to inspect several shopping malls. I was living in Beijing at the time. Because I had played rather enthusiastically with friends the night before and got home quite late, I was worried about oversleeping and missing my flight, so I just leaned on the sofa all night. It was my first time to Harbin, and it was already very cold in November. I didn't bring enough clothes and had a headache from the cold after getting off the plane. Also, because I hadn't booked tickets in advance, I only bought train tickets after arriving in Harbin and found only standing tickets were left. So when I arrived in Daqing after a sleepless night, freezing and dizzy, standing on a green train for more than two hours, I felt I had really suffered too much and this must be written into my memoirs in the future. But looking back carefully, all this so-called "effort" had absolutely nothing to do with ultimately running that clothing business well. Moreover, if I had gone to bed earlier the night before, prepared more clothes, and booked train tickets online in advance, I could have comfortably achieved the same goal. My experience was like a microcosm of many things in my twenty-plus years of life - indulging in behaviors that had no direct help to results but caused myself some suffering, mistaking that for effort.

When I finally realized I wasn't the only one who had mistaken meaningless consumption for effort, I suddenly discovered that many people I thought were very hardworking in life might not be so diligent after all. If I persisted in action in the right direction, surpassing them wouldn't be difficult.

Because our generation's understanding of diligence and effort comes almost entirely from school. More precisely, in the first twenty-plus years of our lives, the most hardworking people in our eyes were those who could desperately study and do problems. Actually, this understanding is extremely one-sided and naive, because studying and doing problems themselves exist for an extremely clear purpose: passing exams. This kind of diligent effort is extremely pure - more review time and higher review intensity can generally directly improve exam scores. The connection between them is clear and direct, and everyone can understand it.

But the wonderful thing about life is that many things are completely incomprehensible until we reach a certain level.

This is like learning English. For over ten years, I fantasized about what complex processes, precise designs, comprehensive involvement, and incredible efforts would be needed until finally one day, perhaps through all that impeccable early learning, I could speak relatively fluent English like speaking Chinese - thinking while speaking, rather than designing sentence structure, tense, and vocabulary before each sentence, rehearsing it several times in my mind, then reciting it out seemingly fluently. Who doesn't imagine it this way? Unfortunately, not only did it never happen, but I couldn't see any trend toward realization. For anyone who sets goals, there's no more painful feeling than this.

But after about two years in America, I suddenly found I could speak fluent English without any obstacles. This wasn't because I adopted any new learning methods, but because there were very few Chinese people around me after going to Indiana. With no choice, I was forced to communicate and express myself in English. In this process, I didn't seriously think about how much I improved each day, nor did I periodically test my learning results. I just kept listening and speaking because I had no choice. It wasn't until suddenly one day more than two years later that I realized, hey, I seemed to really be able to do it now. But I really couldn't summarize how I did it step by step - I just spent those two years very reluctantly living in English.

The most precious abilities a person can acquire are all like mastering a language - the effort you put in doesn't provide immediate feedback, and there may be no harvest at all for a long period, until after accumulating to a certain stage, it suddenly bursts out with amazing power, and even you yourself don't understand how it all happened. For example, physical exercise, reading and writing, or doing business. When you've experienced enough quantitative change to finally cause qualitative change, the skills you possess are beyond most people's reach for life - not because they're too stupid, but precisely because they're all too smart.

The most basic principle that triggers human action is called reflex - we are a species that needs immediate feedback. So most people's understanding of the world is linear, but more often, things develop in the form of long incubation and oscillation followed by explosive breakthroughs. I often think now that people more easily master languages, instruments, and art during their youth - skills that are hard to learn as adults - not because they were naturally gifted as children, but because kids rarely question themselves once a week about what they've gained. They just bury their heads and practice for several years until they learn, then realize oh, they already know how. Only smart adults believe in stories about understanding the I Ching from one book, 10 sentences revealing the secrets of Jack Ma's success, or becoming a guitar master in 30 days.

In short, in real life, there's often no such immediate cause and effect between effort and results. After leaving school, when many things we encounter no longer connect as tightly as doing problems and taking exams, many people's efforts are superficial. The most precious effort is choosing a correct direction and still being able to devote ten years of consistent focus and enthusiasm to things that cannot immediately provide returns. The final result may not be enough to make you invincible, but it's enough to make you outstanding.

Is there a point in life after which everything will get better?

I've talked so much about goals and achieving goals. Thinking carefully, our whole lives seem to be spent struggling to achieve goals. In junior high, teachers told you the elimination rate for high school entrance exams was the highest - once you get through and enter high school, everything will be fine. But after entering high school, you find it's not like that. High school teachers say once you get into university, you'll enter heaven. So you get into university, still feeling empty and confused through your grass-like years, and parents and teachers tell you once you find a job, everything will be fine. After working, you find troubles and worries are still there, and your girlfriend shows you Jack Ma's story, telling you once your career succeeds, everything will be fine...

Have you noticed? Actually, every stage of a person's life has new pains and concerns, repeating endlessly. It will never be "happily ever after" just because you got into university, achieved career success, or married the goddess. But every stage also has its irreplaceable joys. Life is neither an Andersen fairy tale nor a Hollywood movie. From birth until life's end, there's no point after which everything becomes happy, perfect, and carefree.

Every period of time has its value of existence. There's no hierarchy of high and low - none should be wasted. The stupidest thing I can think of for a person to do in life is to put all their life's hopes on some future point while ignoring the joy that life itself should have. Even if you truly achieve that obsessive goal later, you'll discover it's far from as wonderful as you imagined. The happiness of playing basketball and drinking Coca-Cola with buddies on the playground when young cannot be replaced by tasting red wine at golf clubs later. Especially for guys, don't always think about what you'll do when you have money in the future. Not to mention you probably won't be that wealthy later, and believe me, even if you are wealthy, you really can't do much. Life is in each day's living. All obsessions are illusions. Getting along happily with people around you, seriously arranging each day's activities, and feeling each day's state of mind with your heart - this is the meaning of life itself. This is actually what I most wanted to share with you today.

Thank you all.