Risk & Boundaries · Career & Wealth

HESITATE—indecision

Some speak of recklessness, but worse than recklessness is indecision. People who sway like grass atop a wall, however outstanding and strong in other respects, are easily pushed aside in life’s race by the determined. Swift, decisive people inevitably make mistakes, but are far stronger than those who dare do nothing.

Whitehead said, “Fear of error is the destruction of progress.”

PROCRASTINATION

Plans are full-bodied; execution is skeletal. Procrastination is often avoiding problems and laziness: magnifying obstacles, shrinking back, and finding excuses to evade them with the attitude that one more day’s delay is one more day gained, often complaining:

“Boring work”

“A harsh boss”

“I’m too busy”

“Doing it a day later won’t matter”

…

Then we fall into

“Work is increasingly boring”

“Life is increasingly boring”

and its mire, growing lazier and more negative, falling into regret about the past and fantasies about the future. Over time, guilt and self-negation intensify, making us ever more anxious.

The renowned thinker Romain Rolland once said, “Laziness is a strange thing. It makes you think it is comfort, rest, and benefit, but what it actually gives you is boredom, weariness, and dejection.”

NEVER LAST LONG—unable to persist over time

Eighty percent of failures in the world come from giving up halfway. Those with fleeting enthusiasm simply have never experienced the joy of succeeding through persistence, because persisting is always tedious and full of setbacks, while human nature prefers ease and avoids labor. Every year begins with grand plans filling a notebook’s first pages, the rest nearly blank: “I bought a good book, but unfortunately have not started reading it yet…” “I resolved to lose weight, then gave up after about 5 days…”

Almost everyone has experienced “ambitiously making plans and dispiritedly abandoning them.”

AFRAID OF REJECTION

Heavy yet fragile self-esteem. The “pain” we feel in relationships relates to “feeling rejected.” Sometimes rejection is obvious: someone we love suddenly leaves, or friends betray and distance themselves. Sometimes it is subtle: you give someone a smiling glance and they look away, or summon courage to send a WeChat message and get a brief reply much later. Someone who can put self-esteem aside to act focuses on goals and results; someone putting self-esteem first focuses in relationships on others’ attitudes toward them. Thus the more useless someone is, the more attached they become to insignificant boundaries and petty self-esteem.

LIMIT YOURSELF

Killing one’s potential. They often say: I want to do A, but fear I cannot because of reasons B, C, D, and E. Before acting, they negate themselves and find many reasons not to contribute or try. All mediocrity and low achievement become results of self-imposed limits. They assume a “height” within; this “psychological height” continually suggests: I certainly cannot do this well, so good enough will do. This suggestion can shield against frustration from failure and provide a good feeling about oneself, yet deprives them of the opportunity to succeed by “going one step higher.”

La Rochefoucauld said, “Mediocre people always complain about things they do not understand.”

RUN AWAY FROM REALITY

Daydream sufferers: those avoiding reality have 5 characteristics.

1: They frequently daydream, preferring to create a small world of their own.

2: They like an unrestrained life of doing as they please—in plain terms, they yearn for idleness.

3: They become absorbed in games or fantasy novels, which lead into a vast magical world and escape everyday reality.

4: They find the real world cruel, frequently receiving blows from real life while chasing daydreams.

5: They cannot face themselves, because only in the daydream they create can they find certainty and security.

ALWAYS FIND EXCUSES

Always making excuses: it is not my fault. When people make mistakes, their first reaction is often self-defense. Those fond of excuses share traits: no strong commitment to a career, no persistent pursuit, no firm conviction in life. Under pressure and difficulty, they do not and do not want to take responsibility; facing risk and challenge, they retreat. Avoiding responsibility and retreating force them to make excuses. Excuses are easiest: a way to conceal ignorance and seek consolation in it.

FEARFULNESS—timidity

Overcautious cowardice. At work they always feel afraid of criticism from superiors, of others finding them incompetent, of others knowing their shortcomings. They care about evaluations, fear mistakes, and fear effort will not be rewarded. I recall a sentence: I dare not labor hard to polish myself, fearing I will discover I am neither pearl nor jade; yet a thread of hope remains within, and I will not resign myself to the rubble. This is actually weakness of mind, unwillingness to face frustration.

REFUSE TO LEARN

You are not lonely; you simply do not want to learn. Learning takes mental effort; self-growth means continually struggling with yourself—how painful! Better to lie comfortably at home with a phone and movies, then lament bad luck on Moments when peers earn more and live better. “I have never seen someone busy from dawn till night, dragging an exhausted body home, feel empty, lonely, and cold. Most people’s emptiness, loneliness, and coldness basically come from being well-fed with nothing to do.”

As the times develop, some habits may limit our outlook. Once fixed, ideas bring negative effects and stop us considering problems from multiple angles.

Harvard University’s Joyce Matler advises us: “Establish new ideas about creating wealth and act steadily and practically. Do not think becoming rich is difficult!”

So saying that changing even one can bring success is not without reason. Act quickly—are you still hesitating?

The paths to earning money are similar; the ways to spend it are varied. Spending along the wrong path will invite disaster.

[Endure] means having patience inside the casino: do not bet without a good pattern, without confidence, or without luck.

[Wait] means waiting until confident before betting. Disordered thinking is the worst state in which to bet. You must wait, wait, wait.

[Steady] means being settled and stable. Do not bet on ties or pairs, do not place casual bets, and preserve your capital.

[Fierce] means betting fiercely when there is a good pattern, fiercely enough when confident, and even more fiercely when luck is good.

[Leave] means knowing to leave the casino promptly when winning, and knowing to rest and leave promptly when losing.

When funds are scarce, people are more eager for change. Ordinary accumulation seems slow and a leap seems close, so we easily mistake the intensity of our desire for a reason we can bear risk. Yet wanting a quick turnaround and being able to withstand failure are two matters needing separate clarification. Losing the same sum can mean entirely different consequences for different people’s lives.

The amount of capital alone cannot answer our risk questions. What we truly need to see is what task these resources serve, which arrangements could continue if they were lost, and which responsibilities would be affected. Money someone appears able to produce is not necessarily all available for free experimentation.

In my own statements, I once linked having little capital with taking greater risks. Revisiting such judgments, the question worth asking is not whether someone is brave enough, but whether the advice has carefully considered their capacity to bear loss. Urgency can explain a choice, but cannot automatically justify it.

Steadiness cannot remain merely a reflection after experience. It must enter each concrete judgment: do I truly understand the possible costs, or am I temporarily unwilling to see them because I want change so badly? This question does not decide the answer for anyone, but can stop wishes from speaking once more in place of facts.

An experiment that spends less of my own money is certainly worth considering. But I want to keep asking: have we reduced total costs, or merely placed them on someone else? Time, resources, reputation, and waiting can all be real investments. An expense not recorded under my name does not mean no one is paying for the experiment.

Cooperation lets people draw on one another’s strength, but also makes responsibility easier to blur among participants. Someone provides premises, someone technology, someone agrees to be an early user. Their expectations may differ. Participation does not mean we can assume they agree to bear every risk I have imagined.

Daring to say I will bear the consequences if my judgment is wrong expresses responsibility. The real difficulty is seeing beforehand which costs I can bear and which I cannot repair even if I want to. Other people’s time has passed, original opportunities have been missed, trust in relationships has thinned: these all deserve serious consideration before action.

Support for trial and error should therefore come with explanation and choice. Let participants know what they are supporting, have the right to object, and have room to stop contributing. These boundaries may slow progress, but avoid building my courage on others’ unclarified contributions.

Paying a temporary price for a more distant goal is understandable. Learning takes time, cooperation needs adjustment, and some investments yield no immediate result. But if every drain is called a strategic loss, the term may lose its explanatory power. We need to know exactly what today’s losses have bought.

I would rather break this into questions we can keep discussing: what is the next stage, why can we reach it, what signs show we are approaching it, and what circumstances indicate the original idea needs reassessment? Answers may contain uncertainty, but cannot consist only of the wish that things will improve later.

Agreeing on a time to review a stage lets judgment touch reality again. At that point, examine new evidence, capabilities formed, and gaps still present. Heavy past investment only describes past contributions; it cannot alone prove that continued investment is appropriate.

What is often hardest is acknowledging that the goal still matters, but this particular path may no longer be viable. Separating goals from paths allows fresh choice. Whether an adjustment is mature should not be judged only by how much face it preserves, but by whether it reduces losses that keep expanding while no one can say who bears them.

When I see an opportunity I like, wanting to tell people I know is natural. But “this is very stable” may mean only a relatively favorable assessment to me, while becoming an assurance they can relax to the other person. Trust helps information travel and can give a sentence more weight than intended.

Before sharing, I want to separate a few things: what I know, where the evidence comes from, what remains unverified, and my own investment and interests. Explaining these does not diminish an opportunity’s real value, but lets the other person see how the judgment formed instead of merely accepting its conclusion.

Especially with familiar people, the relationship should not be a reason to omit conditions. Their resources, responsibilities, and ways out may differ from mine. Even if we view the same thing similarly, the consequences we are willing to bear may differ. I can offer material and opinions; the final choice should remain theirs.

Sharing worth cherishing leaves the other person better able to judge, not less able to say no. If a statement needs our relationship to bypass questions that should be asked, that enthusiasm needs examination. Let trust help understanding while also preserving room to question.

Every return comes with costs, volatility, and exit conditions.

Before committing resources, write down the worst outcome, the stop-loss line, and what you will not do.

Sometimes what is hardest to stop is no longer the undertaking, but refusing to accept that I misjudged it.

After long investment and many explanations, others know how strongly I believe. Adding more is easily called persistence, while the real driver may be wanting earlier efforts vindicated. Am I investing next resources in the future or protecting my past self? This deserves distinction.

Set incurred costs aside temporarily and reconsider the next step: if this opportunity first appeared today, would present conditions merit investment? Accumulated abilities and resources can count, but spent costs alone cannot justify spending again. Continuing needs new grounds; stopping needs an account of existing responsibilities.

This question does not demand retreat at the first obstacle or reduce long-term work to short-sighted transactions. It reminds me that owning past choices and repeating them differ. Admitting one misjudgment may show more responsibility than continuing to prove I was right.