introduction
It was the first time since graduating from college that I gave a speech in front of so many people, and frankly, I was very nervous. Although I once imagined many times when I was young, after becoming famous, I could share with my young friends my experience of how I went from nothing to the pinnacle of life like those idols I used to be, and then tell everyone earnestly that people cannot live like a grass but like a tree, and the only animals that can reach the top of the pyramid are eagles and snails, and you can also copy my success and so on. But after the age of 26, I suddenly realized a serious problem, that is, I may not achieve much in my life, so when the TEDxDUFE team approached me and said that it doesn't matter, even if you are just a snack bar, we are willing to provide you with such an opportunity to exchange ideas with many people, how excited I was. Because the company has not yet been listed, stories such as small grass and trees, eagles and snails, and sleeping on the floor and picking up cans are not yet told. Today, I just want to share with you a few questions that have troubled me and some friends around me for more than ten years, and my views on these problems after experiencing some changes and setbacks.
Can hard work really make dreams come true?
You can now imagine Mr. Wang Feng sitting in a swivel chair, looking at you affectionately and saying to you, "What is your dream?" Teacher Stephen Chow's sentence "If you don't have a dream, what is the difference between being a person and salted fish?" It is also said to have inspired generations. Dreams are so important that they are simply a beacon in life. Successful people have different reasons for success, but they will never forget to tell you that no matter when, they have never forgotten their dreams, which is the primary reason for their success. So much so that the most common understanding of the meaning of life in our generation is to stick to the dream and finally realize it. But one thing that few people are willing to face is that most people's dreams will never come true, yes, they will never come true.
You heard it right, most people's dreams will never come true.
Let me share with you a dream I had before. When I was in college, I was passionate about all kinds of gambling games and was a frequent visitor to the casino next to the school. The starting point of my career as a gambler is roulette, the most basic game in the casino, with 1 to 36 numbers and two zeros on the wheel with odds of 1 to 36. 1 to 36 points are red and black, and the odds to bet on red and black are 1 to 1. As a qualified person with nine years of compulsory education, I know that every moment the wheel starts to turn, it is a purely independent random event. But the charm of gambling is that when you are really in a casino and see that it has been red 4 times in a row, almost everyone will want to press the chips on the black side. And my dream at that time was to decipher the mystery. My initial strategy was very simple, when three odd numbers were drawn in a row, I bet on even numbers, and three times in a row of reds, I bet on black. Unbelievable things happened, with my strict implementation of this strategy, the first few times I went to the casino not only retreated, but also made a lot of money each time, so that I had an illusion that maybe the game was regular, and I had seen the peak of life beckoning me not far away. Of course, you must have thought of the final ending, after experiencing 18 consecutive even numbers and 21 consecutive black draws, I obediently returned all the money I had earned to the casino.
Later, I learned that my stupid dream was called the gambler's fallacy, so I won't talk about it in detail. But it meant a lot to me, and I finally understood that in the face of purely random events, all laws are meaningless.
There are very few things in life that, like roulette, are purely random events, such as two-color balls. But almost everyone who has won the two-color ball will tell you how much effort they put into studying previous numbers, studying historical laws, and how much hard work they put in to finally succeed. In fact, even if it is something that is purely random, as long as the base of the people involved is large enough, there will always be a small probability event. Interestingly, almost all beneficiaries of random events attribute their efforts to this outcome determined entirely by luck. Not only the participants themselves, but also the bystanders think so. Another example is the champion of The Voice of China.
Everything we encounter in life can basically be divided into three categories, the first category is purely determined by randomness, such as Brownian sports and roulette gambling, and the second category is purely determined by ability, such as the English level 6 exam, 110-meter hurdles, etc. The third category, which is also the one we encounter most often, is determined by ability and randomness, such as entrepreneurship, investment, love or dreams.
The reason why I am deeply tired of motivational masters always telling young people to chase their dreams at all costs is that most people's dreams, although not pure two-color balls, are definitely dominated by randomness. In the face of strong randomness, no matter how hard you sweat, it is like squatting next to a roulette wheel day and night, eager to understand the laws. Speaking of the champion of The Voice of China, Zhang Bichen's sentence youaremydestiny, I was also drunk when I heard it. But after all, at that moment, how many girls in China sang as well or even better than her, and if they really regarded becoming the champion of The Voice as their lifelong dream, they would have to spend their whole lives in pain. I personally like Huang Bo very much, but I will never use Huang Bo as an example to inspire a young man like me to chase his dream of being an actor at all costs. Because whether it is singing or acting, no matter how hard you try, you can only become very good, they do not have quantifiable judgment criteria, and if you want to become a high-profile star, randomness is far more important than strength.
I think that in my opinion, the most valuable asset is that every thing a person does when he is young can clearly distinguish the proportion of randomness and accept it calmly.
So how important is luck in your dreams? When you deeply feel that the randomness of this matter may not favor you, are you still willing to persevere? For me, dreams are always worth pursuing, but I can accept them with great calmness, it can never be realized.
Since you can't even realize your dream, what else is worth working on?
This time last year, I posted a Weibo.
Over the years, I have been reminding myself of one thing, don't move yourself. Most people's seeming efforts are just caused by stupidity. What stays up late to read until dawn, sleeps only a few hours for several days in a row, how long has it been a holiday, if these things are also worth boasting about, then anyone on the Foxconn assembly line has worked much harder than you. People are inevitably born with self-pity, and only by staying awake at all times can they see where the true value lies. This passage went viral on the Internet, which I didn't expect. What was even more unexpected to me was that I saw a considerable part of the scolding in the comments, and some people seriously wrote me quite profound words, "Don't blow out other people's candles when you have your own light, you can't deny others because you don't like it." "It's inexplicable, even if you just listened to my last paragraph about randomness, you will know that I have never felt that hard work is a meaningless thing. On the contrary, I have always believed that you are not even qualified to face randomness until your ability reaches a certain level. Zhang Bichen's ability to win the Voice Championship is naturally inseparable from luck, but if it is replaced by Yang Mi, the judges will not only not turn around and may run away.
But now the question is, what is a worthwhile effort? This can start with my Weibo. At this time last year, my friends and I were thinking about going to Daqing to do some clothing business, and decided to visit a few shopping malls. I was living in Beijing at the time, because I had been playing outside with my friends the night before, and it was late to come home, and I was worried that I would miss my flight if I slept too much, so I leaned on the sofa for the night that night. It was the first time I went to Harbin, it was already very cold in November, I didn't have enough clothes, and I had a headache when I got off the plane. And because I didn't book tickets in advance, I bought train tickets after arriving in Harbin, and found that there were only standing tickets left. So, when I didn't sleep all night, was dizzy from the cold, and stood on the green train for more than two hours, the moment I arrived in Daqing, I felt that it was really not easy, and I had to write it in my memoirs in the future. However, looking back, these so-called "efforts" have nothing to do with me finally doing a good job in that clothing business. What's more, if I can go to bed early the night before, prepare more clothes, and book train tickets online in advance, I can achieve the same purpose comfortably. My experience was like a microcosm of many things in my life for more than 20 years, indulging in behaviors that did not directly help the result just because I had suffered some pain, mistakenly thinking that it was hard work.
When I finally realized that I was not the only one who had regarded meaningless consumption as an effort, I suddenly realized that the people I thought were working hard in life might not be so diligent, and it would not be difficult to surpass them if I persisted in acting in the right direction.
Because our generation's understanding of diligence and hard work almost all comes from school, more precisely, in the first twenty years of life, the hardest people in our eyes are those who can read books and do questions the most. In fact, this understanding is extremely one-sided and naïve, because reading books and doing questions themselves exist for an extremely distinct purpose, which is to pass the exam. This kind of diligent dedication is extremely pure, more review time, higher review intensity, generally speaking, can directly improve the score of the exam, and the connection between them is clear and direct, and everyone can understand it.
But the beauty of life is that many things are completely incomprehensible until we reach a certain level.
This is like learning English, for more than ten long years, I have been fantasizing about how complex the process, how sophisticated the design, how comprehensive the involvement and what incredible efforts, finally one day, maybe I can speak more fluent English because of those impeccable learning in the early stage, like speaking Chinese, I can think while speaking, instead of designing its sentence tense vocabulary before saying each sentence, and then repeating it in my mind several times and then reciting it fluently. Who wouldn't have thought so? Unfortunately, not only did it never come true, but it also made me see no trend towards realization, and there was no more painful feeling for everyone who set goals.
But after going to the United States for about two years, I suddenly found that I could already speak English fluently without any obstacles. This is not because I have adopted any new learning methods, but because after going to Indiana, there are very few Chinese around me, and I can only be forced to communicate and express in English without a choice. It wasn't until more than two years later, suddenly one day, that I realized, hey, I really seemed to be able to do it. But I really can't summarize how I did it step by step, but in those two years, I have been reluctantly living in English.
The most valuable ability that a person can acquire is the same as mastering a language, and the efforts you put in are not able to get immediate rewards, or even for a long time, until after accumulating to a certain stage, you suddenly burst out with amazing power, and even you don't know how it all happened. For example, exercising, reading and writing, or doing business. When you experience enough quantitative changes to finally cause qualitative changes, most people will never be able to achieve them, not because they are too stupid, but on the contrary, because they are too smart.
The most basic principle that triggers human action is called reflex, and we are a species that needs instant feedback. Therefore, the vast majority of people's understanding of the world is linear, but more often than not, things develop in the form of breakthroughs after a long latent shock. I often feel that it is easier for people to master language, musical instruments, and art skills that are difficult to learn as adults when they are teenagers, not because they were talented and intelligent when they were young, but because children rarely question how much they have gained once a week. Only smart adults believe that 1 book can read the I Ching, 10 sentences reveal the story of Jack Ma's success, and become a guitar master in 30 days.
In short, in real life, the relationship between effort and results is often not so immediate. After leaving school, when many of the things we encounter are no longer as closely related to the question and the exam, many people's efforts are superficial. And the most valuable effort is to choose the right direction, those things that cannot be immediately rewarded, can still pay ten years of concentration and enthusiasm, the final result may not be enough for you to lose, but enough to excel.
Is there a node in a person's life after which everything will be fine?
All that has been said before, what is talked about is related to goals and achieving them. If you think about it, it seems that we have spent our lives struggling to achieve our goals. When you were in junior high school, the teacher told you that the elimination rate of the high school entrance examination is the highest, as long as you break through and go to high school, everything will be fine. But when I went to high school, I found that it wasn't like that, and the high school teacher said again, I went to heaven when I was admitted to college. So you were admitted to college, still empty and confused, and your parents and teachers told you that it would be good to find a job. After work, I found that my worries and worries were still there, and my girlfriend showed you Jack Ma's story and told you that it would be better to wait for your career to be successful......
Have you noticed that in fact, every stage of a person's life has new pains and concerns, and they are repeated over and over again. It will never be because you are admitted to college, your career is successful, and you will be happy to marry the goddess. But every stage also has every stage of happiness, which cannot be replaced. Life is not an Andersen fairy tale or a Hollywood movie, from the moment of birth to the end of life, there is no node, and after the pass, everything is happy and carefree.
Every period of time has its own value, and there is no distinction between high and low, and it should not be let down. And the most stupid thing I can think of in this life is to throw all the hope of life at a certain point in the future, ignoring the fun of life itself. Even if you really achieve the goal in that obsession in the future, you will find that it is far from as beautiful as you think. The joy of playing basketball and drinking cola with my buddies on the playground when I was young is irreplaceable by red wine in the golf club in the future. Especially boys, don't always think about what will happen when I get rich in the future, not to mention that you are likely not to be too rich in the future, and believe me, even if you are rich, you really can't do anything. Life is in daily life, all obsessions are false, get along happily with the people around you, carefully arrange daily activities, and feel the mood of every day with your heart, which is the meaning of life itself. This is actually what I want to share with you the most today.
Thank you.
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Posted on 10/21/2019 2:50:11 PM
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Posted on 10/21/2019 4:39:17 PM