Live in the future, not the present. 活在未来，而不是现在。

13273792437 seven years 113 2025年09月19日

“Living in the moment” is a very popular saying. However, I have always found this to be a rather foolish piece of advice, because the majority of people do not need this advice at all, as they are already living in the present. On the contrary, living in the moment is likely the fundamental reason why most people end up losing out, as whether they like it or not, a person is always moving into the future or, conversely, the future is always making its way into a person’s life.
“活在当下”是一句非常流行的谚语。然而，我一直觉得这是一个相当愚蠢的建议，因为大多数人根本不需要这个建议，因为他们已经活在当下。相反，活在当下可能是大多数人最终失败的根本原因，因为无论他们喜欢与否，一个人总是在走向未来，或者相反，未来总是在进入一个人的生活。

At the age of 28, I made a difficult, yet proactive decision, which was the starting point of my rebirth, and every subsequent rebirth was fortunately due to that decision. The reason I insisted on making this difficult decision was that I saw my future. The reasoning was simple, and the logic was also very simple – if the things I sell are made by myself, the better they sell and the more I earn, the happier I will be. But now, the things I sell are not made by myself, and although I make money and feel happy, something is missing – yes, it is happiness.
28岁那年，我做出了一个艰难而又积极主动的决定，这是我重生的起点，而随后的每一次重生，都是幸运的，都是因为这个决定。我之所以坚持做出这个艰难的决定，是因为我看到了自己的未来。道理很简单，逻辑也很简单——如果我卖的东西是我自己做的，卖得越好，我赚得越多，我就会越开心。但是现在，我卖的东西不是我自己做的，虽然我赚了钱，感到快乐，但缺少了一些东西——是的，那就是快乐。

That’s what I thought at the time. Once I thought about these things, the subsequent decisions became natural, because we should never choose between ease and difficulty, but between right and wrong. We should do the right thing, even if it is difficult, and should avoid doing the wrong thing, no matter how easy it may seem. Isn’t that clear?
我当时就是这么想的。一旦我想到这些事情，接下来的决定就变得很自然了，因为我们永远不应该在轻松和困难之间做出选择，而应该在对与错之间做出选择。我们应该做正确的事，即使这很困难，也应该避免做错事，无论它看起来多么容易。这不是很清楚吗？

The trick to surpassing the majority of people is actually quite simple – find a way to live in the future. To be more specific, live in the not-too-distant future. Thinking too far ahead can lead to creating a mirage, unrealistic and overly ambitious. But if you live completely in the present, you will be indistinguishable from others. We should find a way to live in the not-too-distant future, and the key to a happy and fulfilling life lies in being half a step ahead of others. Being too far ahead is unsafe, being half a step behind will lead to regrets, and being at the same pace as others is just unremarkable and meaningless.
超越大多数人的诀窍其实很简单——找到未来的生活方式。更具体地说，生活在不太遥远的未来。想得太远会导致海市蜃楼、不切实际和过于雄心勃勃。但如果你完全活在当下，你将与他人无法区分。我们应该在不远的将来找到一种生活方式，而幸福充实的生活的关键在于领先他人半步。领先太远是不安全的，落后半步会导致遗憾，和别人步调一致只是平淡无奇，毫无意义。

But how do we live in the future? This may sound like an unlikely thing, but in reality, it is quite simple – just two things:
但是，未来我们该如何生活呢？这听起来似乎是一件不太可能的事情，但实际上，它很简单——只有两件事：

  1. Be devout in logic.
    在逻辑上要虔诚。
  2. Use logic to judge what will happen tomorrow.
    用逻辑来判断明天会发生什么。

People who think the future is completely unknown are foolish, especially in a world like today’s. I don’t quite understand why there are still people who think the future is completely unknowable, because these people clearly live in a world where there is a weather forecast every day! Weather forecasts are not always accurate, but everyone knows that it is much better to have them than not. Predicting the weather a month in advance is not likely to be completely accurate, but the successful probability of predicting tomorrow’s weather is already much higher, and predicting the weather two hours later becomes much easier. Isn’t that the case? The future is not completely unpredictable.
认为未来完全未知的人是愚蠢的，尤其是在今天这样的世界里。我不太明白为什么还有人认为未来是完全不可知的，因为这些人明明生活在一个每天都有天气预报的世界里！天气预报并不总是准确的，但每个人都知道，有天气预报总比没有好得多。提前一个月预测天气不太可能完全准确，但预测明天天气的成功概率已经高得多，两个小时后预测天气变得容易得多。不是这样吗？未来并非完全不可预测。

If we determine that this is a world where knowledge is increasingly being monetized, can’t you predict such a result? The higher the level of education your child receives, the higher their future income will be. Although it may not be 100% certain, probabilistically, this assertion is likely to be accurate. But how can the conclusion that knowledge is useless be so popular?
如果我们确定这是一个知识越来越多地货币化的世界，你不能预测这样的结果吗？您的孩子接受的教育水平越高，他们未来的收入就越高。虽然可能不是100%确定，但从概率上讲，这个断言可能是准确的。但是，知识无用的结论怎么会如此流行呢？

For me personally, there are two experiences that can illustrate the issue particularly well. I’ve already discussed the first experience. When I was 28 years old, I had a judgment that in the future, creating value would definitely be more valuable than sales value, especially for me personally. So, even though I was already good at sales, I decided to temporarily give it up and focus on becoming a creator. I firmly believed in this principle, and I followed through with it. As time passed, the correct results gradually manifested. In other words, from the moment I understood and started to believe, I was to a certain extent “living in the future”. It’s just that my future needed time to prove, and I had to act and patiently wait for the already determined results to materialize.
就我个人而言，有两个经验可以特别很好地说明这个问题。我已经讨论过第一次体验。在我28岁的时候，我有一个判断，在未来，创造价值肯定会比销售价值更有价值，尤其是对我个人来说。所以，尽管我已经很擅长销售，但我还是决定暂时放弃它，专注于成为一名创作者。我坚信这个原则，并坚持了下来。随着时间的流逝，正确的结果逐渐显现出来。换句话说，从我理解并开始相信的那一刻起，我就在某种程度上“生活在未来”。只是我的未来需要时间来证明，我必须采取行动，耐心等待已经确定的结果实现。

The second experience is my process of buying Bitcoin. In early 2011, after hearing about Bitcoin, I began to seriously study it, eventually coming to the conclusion that regardless of how rigorous this system might be, and it was indeed very rigorous, as long as it was accepted by a certain number of people, its price could increase significantly. At the time I believed that the fundamentals of this thing depended on how many people directly or indirectly used it and how many people paid attention, and that could have a significant impact.
第二个经历是我购买比特币的过程。2011年初，在听说比特币之后，我开始认真研究它，最终得出的结论是，无论这个系统多么严格，它确实非常严格，只要它被一定数量的人接受，它的价格可能会大幅上涨。当时我认为，这个东西的基本面取决于有多少人直接或间接使用它，有多少人关注它，这可能会产生重大影响。

I personally judged that this logic was simple yet complete. Therefore, I believed in this result. Since I believed in the result deduced from this logic, I had to go ahead and buy it, as much as possible. Two years passed, and on April 1, 2013, the “amazing” result happened. The price of a single Bitcoin surpassed one hundred US dollars.
我个人判断，这个逻辑简单而完整。因此，我相信这个结果。由于我相信从这个逻辑中推断出的结果，我不得不尽可能多地继续购买它。两年过去了，2013年4月1日，“惊人”的结果发生了。单个比特币的价格超过了一百美元。

For me, this result was the logical deduction from two years ago. Whether it took two years or twenty years for this to occur was not important. What was crucial was that I had already firmly believed in it before the result was demonstrated, and I had acted according to this logical deduction. Thus, during these two years, to a certain extent, I was living in the future.
对我来说，这个结果是两年前的合乎逻辑的推论。这是两年还是二十年才发生，这并不重要。关键是，在结果被证明之前，我已经坚定地相信了它，并且我按照这个逻辑推论行事。因此，在这两年里，在某种程度上，我生活在未来。

To be honest, the appearance of the result I imagined within two years was quite unexpected for me. I thought it would take at least ten years. From the perspective of others, I was akin to winning the lottery. From my personal perspective, it was somewhat frustrating because it deprived me of an opportunity to prove that I could see ten years ahead… In fact, I didn’t even know how many people truly understood what I was saying when I talked about it.
说实话，两年内我想象的结果的出现对我来说是相当出乎意料的。我以为至少需要十年时间。从别人的角度来看，我就像中了彩票。从我个人的角度来看，这有点令人沮丧，因为它剥夺了我证明我能看到未来十年的机会……事实上，当我谈论它时，我什至不知道有多少人真正理解我在说什么。

When I was very young, I was introduced to and learned basic programming languages. This experience did not automatically turn me into a software engineer; on the contrary, this experience may have actually prevented me from becoming a software engineer. But it forged a very useful methodology for me – everything can be simulated.
在我很小的时候，我就被介绍并学习了基本的编程语言。这段经历并没有自动使我成为一名软件工程师;相反，这段经历实际上可能阻止了我成为一名软件工程师。但它为我打造了一种非常有用的方法——一切都可以模拟。

The first computer I used besides a flash drive had no other storage devices. If it lost power during use, everything would be lost after restarting… So, we wrote the programs on paper, letter by letter, and then checked it thoroughly to make sure everything was absolutely perfect—although that was almost impossible. I remember a time when several of us entered every line of the program I wrote (which had many GOTO statements) into the computer, and the result was correct, which made everyone so excited!
除了闪存驱动器之外，我使用的第一台计算机没有其他存储设备。如果在使用过程中断电，重启后一切都会丢失……因此，我们把程序写在纸上，一个字母一个字母地写，然后彻底检查，以确保一切都绝对完美——尽管这几乎是不可能的。我记得有一次，我们几个人把我写的程序的每一行（有很多GOTO语句）都输入到电脑里，结果是正确的，这让每个人都很兴奋！

As a result, “often simulating in your mind before doing something” gradually became my habit. Later, I found out that not everyone had this habit. Most people seemed to rely on improvisation throughout their lives – which was not admirable, because the results of improvisation were often not good.
于是，“在做某事之前，经常在脑海中模拟”逐渐成为我的习惯。后来，我发现并不是每个人都有这个习惯。大多数人似乎一生都依赖即兴创作——这并不令人钦佩，因为即兴创作的结果往往不好。

As a result, I began to take that simple suggestion more seriously: Do your homework.
因此，我开始更认真地对待这个简单的建议：做好功课。

Later on, a friend’s catchphrase had a profound impact on me. I have already lost contact with him, but I always remember his saying, “Who are we?!” For example, when some classmates were very pleased with themselves after cheating in an exam, he would say, “Who are we?!” – meaning, “We are people with principles, that kind of thing has nothing to do with us!” Or when he would strive to do something to the best of his ability, it was because “Who are we?!” – anything we do must be good enough, otherwise it would be very embarrassing…
后来，一位朋友的口号对我产生了深远的影响。我已经和他失去了联系，但我总是记得他说：“我们是谁？！例如，当一些同学在考试作弊后对自己很满意时，他会说：“我们是谁？！”——意思是，“我们是有原则的人，这种事情与我们无关！或者当他竭尽全力去做某件事时，那是因为“我们是谁？！”——我们所做的任何事情都必须足够好，否则会很尴尬……

These experiences have helped shape my mindset and how I approach life.
这些经历帮助塑造了我的心态和对待生活的方式。

It wasn’t until many years later that I realized this short sentence had subtly raised the standards for self-judgment everywhere, prompting me to make more effort to meet these elevated standards and ultimately set me apart from others; the cumulative effect of this has been significant. Therefore, consciously raising self-expectations is an essential prerequisite for improving one’s own standards—I truly believe in this.
直到多年后，我才意识到这短短的一句话，已经潜移默化地提高了各地自我判断的标准，促使我更加努力地达到这些更高的标准，并最终使我与众不同;其累积效应是显著的。因此，有意识地提高自我期望是提高自身标准的必要前提——我真的相信这一点。

Raising standards just a little for oneself, and then doing the necessary work, naturally leads to better results. Some time later, I read something along the lines of:
稍微提高自己的标准，然后做必要的工作，自然会带来更好的结果。一段时间后，我读到了以下内容：

“Take a moment to imagine yourself several years from now. What kind of person do you want to be at that time? Then, work backwards and start learning and working according to those standards in advance.”
“花点时间想象一下几年后的自己。那个时候你想成为什么样的人？然后，逆向工作，提前开始按照这些标准学习和工作。

(I can’t recall where I read this, but I searched online the other day and I think it was from a booklet by Brian Tracy many years ago…)
（我不记得我在哪里读到的，但我前几天在网上搜索了一下，我想它来自多年前布莱恩·特雷西的一本小册子……

I believe there are surely many people who have read similar words to me, but few have really found it reasonable, and even fewer have actually followed through with it.
我相信肯定有很多人读过和我类似的文字，但很少有人真正觉得它合理，真正遵循它的就更少了。

Note that I have removed “life” from the three things: “life, work, and study,” and placed “study” ahead of “work.” This is because studying and working according to the standards future you requires will construct a completely different life.
请注意，我已经从“生活、工作和学习”这三件事中删除了“生活”，并将“学习”放在“工作”之前。这是因为按照你未来需要的标准学习和工作将构建一个完全不同的生活。

Many people might think that such a life would be dull or overly demanding, but in reality, I believe there is a certain group of people, like me, who will soon discover that this is actually an especially stimulating way of life, as under this way of life, dopamine secretion tends to exceed the average level—this actually is the quantified definition of “happiness” by physiologists and psychologists.
很多人可能认为这样的生活会很沉闷或要求过高，但实际上，我相信有一群人，像我一样，很快就会发现，这其实是一种特别刺激的生活方式，因为在这种生活方式下，多巴胺分泌往往会超过平均水平——这其实是生理学家和心理学家对“幸福”的量化定义。

Most importantly, there is something to be done: to become the future you in advance.
最重要的是，有一些事情要做：提前成为未来的你。

Spend some time thinking about your future self, spend some time rehearsing a bit, raise your standards a little, and do a bit more work—this way, differences should accumulate little by little.
花点时间想想未来的自己，花点时间排练一下，提高一点标准，多做一点工作——这样，差异就会一点一点地积累起来。

Originally posted 2024-04-06 09:37:01.

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