Written on New Year's Day 2025: Press On, and Wait for the Wind

Unnoticed, 2024 has passed and we have welcomed 2025. This year, my official WeChat account and personal website also enter their tenth year. Ten years ago, when I decided to open the official account and build a personal website to publish my daily writing, I never imagined I would keep at it for ten years.

Many readers had read my articles through other channels before I opened the account and website; my longest-read readers have followed me for over twenty years. To be honest, writing every day is quite hard, and sometimes I feel daunted. Occasionally I sit at the computer staring at the screen, not knowing where to begin, heart sinking. But a person used to diligence is not easily defeated by laziness. So on days when I do not want to write, I steel myself, grit my teeth, and insist on continuing.

My persistence over these years may have something to do with being middle-aged. At middle age, there are really not many ways out. With elderly parents above and children below, the family needs us and society needs us. At this stage of life, it is no exaggeration to call us the mainstays of family and society. It is not that we do not want to stop, but that our stopping would plunge family and society into difficulty. So middle age is the stage of life when one can persevere most.

When the road ahead looks bright, the motivation to persist may be stronger. But most of the time the road is long and seems hopeless; even then, we must persist. Because persisting may not yield results, but not persisting yields even worse results. In fact, when I opened my official account and personal website ten years ago, my future was far from clear, the support I could get was limited, and even my family opposed my giving up my old career. But I knew the road I wanted was the one I loved; even if there was little hope, I was willing to strive for it.

So, day after day, I kept at it, and slowly the willow darkened and flowers bloomed and a new village appeared. Ten years to sharpen a sword; even a dull person can achieve a little something. People these days talk about "long-termism," a term not popular ten years ago. Ten years ago I was just a headstrong youth who would do what he loved no matter what; as I kept at it, I became a "long-termist" in others' eyes.

In my view, nothing in the world is achieved easily. I am a person of ordinary talent; I can only learn what gifted people grasp at a glance by working harder than others. Since childhood I have met many impressive people. The first to crush me was my own older brother. The moment he entered school, he went on an unstoppable streak, always ranking first, and became the top scorer in the college entrance exam. Most of his teachers went on to teach me too. Yet I always ranked dead last. We were full brothers of the same mother, but the gap was astonishing. As a child I lived in my brother's shadow, even hand-me-downs of his clothes.

Later my grades improved and I became a competition student, but there were competition students all around me, nearly every one stronger than I, so I was long the "tail of the phoenix." In my middle-school days, world Olympiad championships often went to Huanggang; that is, there were always freaks around us who could rank first in the world. Running the same track as those freaks, all we could do was feel ashamed.

My only strength is that I can, like Forrest Gump, run on unhurriedly, clumsy as I am. As I kept running, I found fewer and fewer people ahead of me. Most of those gifted classmates I met as a child have faded into obscurity. No other reason: they stopped running, while I kept going.

I often reflect on Huanggang's education. Once upon a time, our students brought home piles of gold, silver and bronze medals from international Olympiads. Yet these brilliant competitors have mostly faded into obscurity as adults. If the highlight of a Huanggang competition student's life ends the moment they hold up the medal, what is the point of such education?

My clan has produced a string of elite graduates from 985 and 211 universities, but none has produced a creative achievement worth showing off. I have many friends from Peking and Tsinghua; sleeping right beside me every night is a snoring Tsinghua female graduate student. With respect, none of these pedigreed companions has produced a striking breakthrough either.

These credentials are depreciating now. My wife teaches at a vocational school; her graduates earn five or six thousand a month after graduation. In recent years, many PhDs, postdocs and overseas returnees have applied to her school, starting at six thousand. So I often wonder how we should raise the next generation to truly develop ability, rather than obsessing only over exam scores and degrees.

Frankly, we are facing many difficulties right now. But personally I see a beneficial side to them: in the past we achieved success too easily, taking many things ready-made from others. Now it is increasingly hard to repeat past successes, and we must use our heads to solve the various problems that arise. I believe we have the brains; it is just that, used to following standard answers for so long, our brains grew lazy. Now we face many difficulties; to break through them we must press on, steel ourselves, grit our teeth, and overcome each hard problem ourselves.

Pressing on is inevitable as we walk through confusion, but as long as we keep moving — whether in a fog or clear-headed — when the next spring breeze blows, we will burst with vitality. Every crisis holds an opportunity and a way to survive; do not fixate only on difficulties, but keep hope in your heart.

At this moment I am raising sail and setting out toward the next decade. Every voyage in life is bound to be full of hardships and dangers, but at the next stop, looking back on the road behind, we will thank the self that kept striving. May each of us keep running forward. Believe me: as we run, those difficulties in our lives will grow trivial; as we run, one crisis after another will drift past behind us. Running also frees us from anxiety; when we are running forward, we have little leisure for sorrow.