Reposted from Zhihu: https://www.zhihu.com/question/2047322812906301433/answer/2055734058915829709
Zhihu reposted this from Tianya; the original full-length PDF: 张介子笔记 | Link3
The following is the original text:
I’ve also lost desire for consumption. In the past, I’d always book the finest local hotel whenever traveling somewhere new; now, however, I find greater ease staying in a homestay—cooking my own meals and brewing tea. Perhaps having endured so many setbacks and hardships, I now cherish every opportunity for solitude more than ever. It seems that roughly every six or seven years, people undergo a kind of cycle—a reversal of fortune. Things once deemed vitally important suddenly feel trivial; tasks once accomplished effortlessly now seem impossibly difficult; while matters previously perceived as overwhelmingly hard have quietly become part of daily routine.
We inevitably evolve into versions of ourselves we dislike—but when reversal arrives, we’re willing to let go of everything and truly return to our authentic selves. So here’s my first suggestion: don’t cling too tightly to your past achievements or failures. Even if you obsess over them, time will gradually erase their weight.
If your current state is truly dire, here’s a playful yet potentially effective method to improve your luck: When things aren’t going well, choose a city you love, eat your favorite food there, book your favorite hotel, take a shower—and then discard all your undergarments and socks. Absolutely do not take them with you; leave them behind in that city, along with your bad luck. Then dress yourself in brand-new clothes and begin a fresh life.
Often, being stuck in hardship stems not from internal flaws but from environmental influences. Staying too long in one place, seeing the same people day after day, numbs us. Even I—a writer who pens daily—feel exhausted and uninspired if I stay too long in one location. So don’t pressure yourself to excel at everything in one place. Frequently, deliberately changing your environment also changes your fortune.
If something else still prevents you from escaping adversity, it’s likely that most people are held hostage by their habits and cultural conditioning. We repeat the same patterns daily while expecting life to transform magically. If you genuinely wish to make progress over a period, my second suggestion is this: Release all your habitual tendencies, release others’ expectations of you, and release the constraints imposed by traditional culture. You needn’t be universally kind; you needn’t even force yourself to be “good” at all times. Sometimes, you must allow yourself to be “bad”—because only “bad” people can balance the world’s abundant malice. If you constantly prioritize others—even when you know you shouldn’t bear certain burdens—you’ll inevitably suffer. So carve out time to shatter your habitual patterns entirely:
- If you used to hesitate spending money, now allocate a substantial sum to treat and pamper yourself.
- If you never dared oversleep, take several days off solely to rest deeply.
- If you returned home every Spring Festival, skip it one year—pack your bag and travel solo instead.
Only by breaking habits and relinquishing rigid “shoulds” can you gradually gain clarity about yourself amid hardship. And once you actually do these things, you’ll discover that actions once burdened with guilt stemmed merely from suppressing your desires too deeply. Many of us remain trapped—not by external forces—but within a cage of “ought-to”: You ought to rise at dawn; you ought to sleep at dusk; you ought to go home for Spring Festival; you ought to save money once you earn it—thus locking yourself into stagnant energy: neither fluctuating nor alive.
Let me say something you might not like to hear: Those who truly emerge from adversity aren’t necessarily harder-working than you—they’re simply more broken, more unhinged. They hit rock bottom, and only then did rebound become possible. Meanwhile, you’ve stayed overly cautious, suspended mid-air for years—neither worsening nor improving. Stuck in limbo, depression becomes inevitable. So humans must dare to become better—and also dare to become worse.
I won’t tell you, “It’s no big deal.” Truthfully, everyone suffers excruciating pain in adversity—the very things you value most get shattered and reassembled repeatedly before genuine wisdom emerges. And if one round isn’t enough, another begins. All I can advise is: If you truly can’t hold on any longer, then cry—regardless of gender. If you truly can’t endure, stop holding on; just catch your breath. Also prepare yourself to accept your most cherished possessions being trampled upon again and again. Precisely because you treasure them, you’re held captive—and heaven will shatter them repeatedly until you realize they’re not truly essential.
Take myself, for instance: I was once obsessed with the feeling of being “the boss”—at one point, I could summon over a hundred people to applaud me. To sustain that image, I undertook countless inappropriate actions and assumed responsibilities that were never mine to bear. Only after everyone dispersed did I realize: Every feast ends; people inevitably drift apart. No matter how close you are with someone, after a few years, reasons to stay connected vanish entirely. Ultimately, you face everything alone—your life’s quality, your career’s trajectory, rests solely in your hands. Everyone else is merely a passerby in your life. They have their own struggles; they grow, change—and one day, you or they simply lose the right to reappear in each other’s worlds.
Thus, learn early to detach emotionally; learn early your true capabilities; learn how to live more comfortably. Moreover, adversity accompanies us throughout life—we face new troubles each year, and solving one instantly invites another. These challenges rarely repeat themselves. So I realized early: Life unfolds backward. Our childhoods were carefree; our late teens were peak health, mental freedom, and capacity for love and hatred. As years pass, more and more ropes bind us—tightening progressively. Look back every decade: Even after escaping one crisis, you’ll still long for those earlier days—because those problems were at least solvable, limited only by youthful narrowness, insufficient tolerance, or lack of insight. Today’s troubles dwarf yesterday’s by dozens or even hundreds of times. Reflecting on the past, you’ll feel happiness. By this logic, ten years hence, today’s crises will seem trivial. So adopt a future-oriented perspective: Analyze how today’s adversity arose—and what concrete steps you must take to shift it.
Truthfully, there’s no singular “method.” If you battle problems through binary thinking—“win or lose”—you’ll confront endless, unsolvable issues. But shift your mindset: View surrounding difficulties not as enemies, but as natural, coexisting elements of your life. Accept them as integral parts of your existence—and liberation follows. Like illness in the body: Disease doesn’t exist independently—it arises because your immune system is weak. Symptoms are surface-level; the root lies within your system’s dysfunction. Thus, adopt holistic, systemic thinking—not fighting isolated problems, but cultivating health: exercising, maintaining good habits—so illness recedes. You needn’t struggle upward relentlessly; instead, practice inner cultivation within adversity—treat every daily challenge, criticism, or event as spiritual training. Continue doing what you must, even amid pain. You needn’t “become better” first to act—you are who you are now, and action begins here.
Your adversity is essentially your inner demon. Once your mindset shifts, you’ve already stepped out of it. Reframe debt as: “The world holds no ‘debt’—only temporary expenses.” Reframe failure as: “There’s no failure—just an experiment revealing this path isn’t suited for me.” You needn’t thank fate for anything, nor regret errors. Simply recognize their beneficial aspects—and honor their objective reality.
Moreover, many insights arise along the journey—yet why do so many delay action? Because they force themselves prematurely, without lying fallow long enough. At one point, I refused all activity: I slept daily, doing nothing. Eventually, boredom set in—and I naturally began stepping outside to act. Many people don’t know where to go because years of rote education destroyed their intrinsic motivation. They feel indifferent toward everything and unenthusiastic toward everyone—because every spark of personal desire was suppressed by parents and replaced with parental will. Imagine feeding a child beyond satiety: He develops anorexia. Similarly, many in adversity possess ample capability and energy—their appetite for action was simply ruined. Their vitality remains untapped, seeking outlet.
So when anxiety strikes, understand: It’s not weakness—it’s excess strength. You must rest deeply to rebalance energy—not attempt breakthroughs while mentally chaotic. Truly wise people grasp this: At their lowest points, they lie flat—or pursue unrelated activities to restore equilibrium. Once balance returns, solutions appear organically. The path exists; you needn’t seek it. Your task is merely to open your inner vision—to see it clearly. When your heart settles, your path reveals itself.