OxLin_老林

I know a big shot who sold his own company a few years ago.
The day the money hit the account, an eight-figure sum was sitting there.
I thought he would go buy a sports car, swap his mansion for a bigger one, and book a ticket for a round-the-world trip.
But none of it happened.
He drove there alone, to the outskirts of the city, and sat in a stretch of barren land for the whole afternoon.
He smoked a few cigarettes, watched the ants carry their burdens, came home in the evening, and cooked his mother a dinner.
The next day, he got up at six as usual—went for a run, read books, and then went downstairs to the breakfast place he’d been eating at for more than ten years.
The boss’s wife asked him, "Aren’t you working today?"
He smiled and said, "You won’t have to work anymore."

In the past couple of days, I came across an article saying that over the next three years, we need to be especially careful.
It contains 16 suggestions. Some of them I don’t fully agree with, but there’s an underlying logic that I think is worth discussing.
In the past few years, many people have been thinking about how to make money faster.
Over the next few years, it may be even more important to figure out how to lose more slowly.
Whether it’s buying a home, starting a business, or investing—what’s truly dangerous isn’t the lack of opportunities, but when your understanding isn’t sufficient and you put all your chips on the table at once.
Many people always think that as long as you catch the right wave once, you can turn things around.
But in reality, most people don’t lose to the times—they lose to leverage.

I’m becoming more and more certain of one thing:
You’re still young, so you haven’t truly seen the power of the “cycle.”
In the past two decades, almost no profession has been able to reliably stay hot for ten years.
Industries that are worshipped on a pedestal today might have been “dead-end pits” just five or six years ago.
Around the early 2000s, Guomao and foreign languages were the kingly majors.
The admission cutoffs for double-non (Tier 2) foreign-language universities could even suppress those of 985 programs; getting into a foreign company was the most dignified way out.
Around 2005, the oil industry was crowned the gods.
Companies like Shell and Schlumberger, in the eyes of many families, were synonymous with a “stable job for life + high income.”
Back then, when kids entered the oil industry system, coming back to the village for the New Year meant they could be toasted with respect.

I used to see a post on Tianya. The title was very arrogant—called (One year is worth ten years).
I thought it was just another success-story cliché. But when I clicked in, I found the author kept repeating a few lines from (The Discourses on Salt and Iron).
Things from thousands of years ago—when you look at them today, they’re somehow still not outdated.
The first sentence is the most brutal.
Wealth lies in understanding numbers and methods, not in hard labor.
In plain terms, wealth depends on the means of production, not on physical strength.
Ordinary people sell time, while bosses buy time. You only have 24 hours a day—no matter how hard you push, it’s still hard to create a real breakthrough.
The second sentence is also very realistic.
First eat your fill, then talk about refinement; first settle down, then discuss poetry and distant places.

I’ve noticed a pretty harsh but often true phenomenon.
Having 300k in savings feels like an invisible wall of air.
Those who break through tend to see their life trajectory shift; those who can’t often find themselves stuck in place.
I have a high school buddy who was always top of the class. Landed a job at 25 and saved up his first 300k by 28.
Back in the day, he used to think about spending as soon as his paycheck hit, and his savings just grew from pinching pennies.
But after hitting that 300k, he suddenly changed.
He started diving into asset allocation, keeping an eye on market cycles, and he no longer saw money as something to blow at any moment.