Beyond Effort: How to Achieve Clarity of Mind

I grew up and was educated in China, later coming to Australia to study, work, and live. I have also long followed the tech industry, academic systems, and workplace cultures in Europe and America. Moving between these different societal experiences, I have increasingly come to realize that no matter where one is, effort is important; however, effort alone is usually not enough to determine a person’s long-term trajectory.

In China, we often hear the saying, “Endure the bitterest hardships to become the best of people.” In European and American workplaces, “Work smarter, not harder” is more popular. And in Australia, people often remind you, “Life is not only about work.” Behind these surface expressions lies a deeper understanding of competition, success, and life in different societies. China emphasizes effort, endurance, and upward competition; the US values choice, innovation, and personal breakthroughs; Europe prioritizes institutional safeguards and quality of life; while Australia seeks a balance between career development, family responsibilities, and personal life.

Of course, these are merely broad cultural and institutional tendencies, not implying that each society has only one way of life, nor can they be easily judged as superior or inferior. Perhaps the real question to ask is: In a complex, ever-changing, and not entirely fair world, how should an ordinary person understand effort, and how should they choose their position?

Over the years, I have gradually formed a simple framework for judgment:

The long-term outcome of life is the result of the combined influence of choice, position, capability, time, and historical trends.

Effort is indispensable, yet it is not everything. Time allows capabilities to accumulate and slowly amplifies the differences brought about by various choices. What is meant by “clarity of mind” might not be understanding everything perfectly, but rather, after seeing these variables, having less meaningless self-blame and internal struggle, and more understanding of reality and patience with action.

Beyond Effort, Learn to Choose Your Problems #

China’s education system excels at training people to change outcomes through effort. Exams have clear scopes, questions usually have standard answers, and there’s a relatively clear relationship between scores and input. Studying diligently, practicing repeatedly, and summarizing methods often lead to improved grades.

For those from ordinary backgrounds lacking family resources, this system holds significant meaning. It at least provides a relatively clear path upward: through studying to enter better schools, and then leveraging academic qualifications to move to larger cities, better companies, and professional fields. For me, this system also provided crucial support. Long-term study and training led me to believe that as long as one is willing to break down problems, understand them deeply, and invest enough time, many difficulties can ultimately be resolved.

This belief remains valuable in academic research and technical work. Whether engaging in artificial intelligence research, designing machine learning systems, or leading technical teams to tackle complex engineering problems, patience, discipline, and long-term accumulation are indispensable.

However, after leaving school, one gradually discovers that society is not an exam with a clearly defined scope. Reality won’t always tell you what the problem is, where the answer lies, how much time to invest, who will evaluate the outcome, nor will it guarantee that every effort will yield a proportionate return.

Often, what truly influences the outcome is not just whether one can solve a problem correctly, but also whether one has chosen a problem worth solving long-term.

China’s rapid industrialization, urbanization, and technological upgrading over the past few decades also reinforced people’s belief in effort. In a rapidly developing society, individuals often grow alongside an expanding industry simply by entering it. Companies add positions, cities absorb populations, and markets create demand; even if choices aren’t perfect, growth itself can temporarily mask many issues.

When economies and industries mature from high-speed growth, the returns on effort become more uneven. Some work longer and longer hours, yet their income and positions don’t significantly improve; some have strong execution skills but remain on platforms lacking growth potential; others continuously learn and obtain certifications, yet rarely pause to assess whether the capabilities they’ve accumulated still lead to the future.

This does not mean that effort has lost its value. It merely reminds us that as universal growth gradually gives way to structural differentiation, where to put effort and why to put effort become as important as effort itself.

If a person is in a continuously shrinking industry, even the most diligent effort can hardly completely offset the forces of the environment; if the core tasks of a position are being automated, merely extending working hours cannot prevent skills from depreciating; if a company consistently lacks investment and development opportunities, simply performing the immediate work to perfection may not lead to a bigger stage.

The valuable aspect of Chinese-style effort lies in its cultivation of strong execution and resilience. At the same time, it can also accustom people to answering problems posed by others, with less practice in actively choosing problems. After leaving the examination room, perhaps we still need to learn one thing: not to abandon effort, but to first clarify what is truly worth our earnest investment.

Understanding How Different Societies Define Capability #

Western societies often emphasize individual choice, independent thinking, and self-realization. Particularly in the technology and business cultures of the US, daring to enter new industries, start companies, express opinions, and take risks is often valued more than steadily progressing along a standard path.

The most influential narrative in Silicon Valley isn’t “ten years of arduous study,” but rather discovering opportunities, building products, securing capital, rapid expansion, and subsequently transforming an industry. This culture encourages people to actively define problems instead of waiting for tasks to be assigned, and it also makes it easier for people to accept that a career is not the result of a single exam, but a series of continuous re-choices.

However, Western societies are also not ideal worlds where brave choices alone guarantee success. Beneath the emphasis on individual capability, differences in family resources, educational background, social networks, capital accumulation, and geographical location still exist. A person born in a tech or financial hub, who received an elite education and possesses a strong professional network, faces a different set of opportunities compared to someone lacking these resources.

Professional networks are highly valued in Western workplaces. The value of a network lies not just in how many people one knows, but more importantly, in whether information, trust, and opportunities can flow effectively. Some positions are filled through professional connections even before public recruitment; some startup projects can quickly secure resources not merely because their ideas are better, but because their founders have easier access to capital, talent, and clients.

One insight this experience brought me is that capability often needs to be seen through some social structure to have a chance of translating into returns. Doing things well is important, but sometimes it also requires letting others understand your value, building trustworthy relationships, and discerning how organizations allocate resources.

This is not to encourage mere packaging or performance. Most complex work in modern society relies on collaboration, and trust itself is an important productive capability.

The US, Europe, and Australia each have different emphases in their understanding of success. The US champions growth, willing to reward entrepreneurship, capital expansion, technological innovation, and individual ambition, and is more tolerant of extreme success and extreme failure coexisting. In such a system, joining a fast-growing company, entering an emerging technology field, or starting a business can offer high upward potential, but at the cost of greater pressure, more uncertainty, and relatively weaker safeguards.

Europe, on the whole, places greater importance on labor rights, institutional safeguards, and quality of life. Its pursuit of growth is typically less aggressive than that of the US, but it emphasizes stability, fairness, and a social safety net more. A person’s career may not experience explosive growth in the short term, but they are also less likely to lose all their security due to a single failure.

Australia, meanwhile, sits between the two. It possesses a market economy and professional service system akin to those of the UK and US, while also retaining robust public healthcare, superannuation (pension), labor protection, and social welfare systems. After living and working in Australia for many years, I’ve observed a distinct cultural inclination: people recognize professional achievement, but they don’t strongly encourage work to become one’s entire life. The ability to spend time with family, maintain health, and enjoy life is equally considered part of success.

This culture allows people to rediscover life outside of work, but it may also carry another noteworthy risk: in a relatively stable and comfortable environment, people can easily underestimate changes happening in the outside world. Australia’s resources, finance, healthcare, education, retail, and public sectors are all relatively mature. Many professionals enjoy good incomes and work-life balance, but they may also remain within stable business systems for a long time, gradually drifting away from the forefront of global technological and business competition.

Therefore, for tech workers living in Australia, it might be worthwhile to constantly ask: How can I cherish stability and quality of life while also allowing room for my capabilities to continuously grow?

The reward mechanisms of different societies influence how capabilities are recognized; and the specific industry, company, and team an individual enters further determine whether these capabilities can continuously grow. Thus, the question of “position” becomes unavoidable.

Find a Position Where Capabilities Can Continuously Grow #

Two equally diligent individuals, working in different countries, cities, industries, companies, and teams, may have very different developmental paths after a few years. This is particularly evident in the tech industry.

If an engineer joins a rapidly developing artificial intelligence platform, they may constantly encounter new problems related to models, data, products, and infrastructure. Another engineer with similar capabilities, if they long-term maintain an old system that lacks investment, might be equally busy with daily work, but their pace and direction of capability accumulation will gradually differ.

This does not necessarily mean the former is superior. They have simply entered different capability growth cycles.

My understanding of “position” is not merely geographical location. It also includes whether a country has the relevant industrial foundation, whether a city attracts talent and capital, whether the industry is growing or contracting, whether the company is willing to continuously invest, whether the role is close to core value creation, whether there are people worth learning from in the team, and whether personal experience can be transferred to other platforms.

Position cannot replace capability. Entering a good platform, if one lacks the ability to seize opportunities, will likewise struggle to yield long-term results. But capability can also hardly completely replace position. A seed needs its own vitality, but also suitable soil, sunlight, and water.

Therefore, rather than attributing success entirely to individual effort and simply blaming failure on insufficient diligence, it might be more worthwhile to recognize the influence of social structure, family background, industry cycles, and historical opportunities. However, seeing these influences does not mean we must go to another extreme: that since origin and environment are so crucial, individual action is meaningless.

A more realistic understanding might be: one cannot choose all starting points, but under permissible conditions, one can gradually adjust their position. Learning new capabilities, trying new industries, relocating to new cities, or seeking new teams and collaborative networks can all be part of this adjustment. These changes won’t be without cost, nor will they necessarily yield immediate results, but position isn’t necessarily the endpoint of destiny; it can also be a variable that is slowly altered.

For ordinary people, the real risk may not just be unemployment, salary reduction, or startup failure; there’s also a more subtle situation: a person still has a stable job but is gradually losing market competitiveness.

This change usually doesn’t happen suddenly. Initially, new tools are simply more efficient than old ones; subsequently, new workflows diminish the demand for certain skills; further down the line, although positions still exist, companies are no longer willing to pay higher prices for the same work; it’s only when organizational restructuring or industry downturns occur that individuals might realize their years of experience are not as easily transferable as they imagined.

Artificial intelligence is accelerating this change. It may not simply replace everyone, but it is highly likely to redefine which parts of many roles still hold value.

For software engineers, data scientists, analysts, researchers, and managers, what may become scarcer in the future is not just the ability to complete tasks. It will also include the capability to define the right problems, judge information reliability, understand the relationship between business and technology, design long-running systems, coordinate collaboration among different professionals, and make judgments and take responsibility amidst uncertainty.

So, when evaluating a job, besides salary, position, and immediate stability, perhaps one more question can be asked:

Will this job give me more choices in the future?

If the answer is not optimistic, then the current stability is worth re-examining.

However, after seeing the impact of position, resources, and the era on one’s destiny, another question inevitably arises: if individual effort is constrained by so many external conditions, is it still worthwhile for a person to act diligently? Structural understanding originally helps us break free from simplistic success theories, but it can also unwittingly push people towards fatalism, or even nihilism.

Understand the Structure, But Don’t Give Up on Living Earnestly #

Nihilism is not merely emotional pessimism. Its deeper manifestation is a person gradually losing reasons to take life seriously: when truth can be questioned, morality is influenced by circumstances, and success might just be the result of resources and luck, then persistence, responsibility, creativity, and commitment no longer seem to hold stable value.

This attitude is sometimes even packaged as maturity and perceptiveness. People use phrases like “that’s just how the world is,” “it’s all about self-interest,” or “effort is useless” to explain reality, as if by no longer believing in anything, one can avoid disappointment.

But seeing through some rules does not equate to seeing through life itself.

It is also necessary to distinguish between deconstructionism and nihilism. Deconstruction is a method of understanding the world; it allows one to re-examine concepts that seem natural, eternal, and unquestionable, revealing the historical conditions, vested interests, and inherent contradictions behind them. It helps us understand that “success inevitably comes from effort,” “a certain lifestyle is inherently superior to another,” or “the existing system is the only possible system” are not necessarily truths beyond questioning.

This dismantling has its value. Without it, people easily mistake incidentally formed rules for eternal answers, and readily attribute structural problems entirely to individuals. However, deconstruction can explain how a building was constructed, but it cannot automatically tell us where to live after it’s taken apart.

If a person is only skilled at questioning but no longer willing to build; capable of pointing out the limitations of all values but refusing to take any responsibility; able to explain the interests behind ideals but no longer believes that genuine trust can be established between people, then deconstruction can also become a path to nihilism.

Tearing down idols does not mean tearing down life.

This point is particularly worth noting for today’s children and young people. While past life paths were not suitable for everyone and never fairly delivered for all, they often provided a relatively clear narrative: study hard, acquire skills, find a job, start a family, and then gradually improve life through long-term labor. This narrative at least offered a structure for time, effort, and hope.

Today, many traditional paths are losing their certainty. Educational qualifications no longer necessarily lead to stable careers, hard work may not be enough to afford housing, and technological changes can rapidly alter the value of skills. Meanwhile, social media and recommendation algorithms continuously display extreme success, conflict, and anxiety, making ordinary growth rates seem slow, even like a failure.

Artificial intelligence adds another layer of doubt. Children might ask: since machines can quickly generate articles, images, and programs, why should I still spend a long time learning? Young people might also worry if newly acquired skills will quickly lose their value. When technological progress is described solely as efficiency improvement, job displacement, and intensified competition, it’s easy for people to see themselves as mere production tools that can be replaced at any moment.

Young people are thus exposed to the complexity and anxiety of the adult world earlier than before, yet they may not have enough experience and stable relationships to process this information. As old answers are deconstructed and new value systems have not yet formed, a sense of nihilism may emerge in this void.

Alertness to nihilism does not demand that young people re-accept rigid authority, nor does it require unconditional belief in old success stories. The truly difficult and more valuable work lies in rebuilding after deconstruction.

The meaning of life may not come from a single eternal, unified, and unquestionable answer. It can also grow in concrete aspects of life: diligently mastering a skill, completing a difficult task, caring for someone who needs you, building a trustworthy relationship, fulfilling commitments made, creating something that didn’t exist before, or improving a small part of your immediate environment through your participation.

These things might not solve grand societal problems, nor do they guarantee dazzling returns, but they can help people reconnect with reality. Meaning is often not discovered, but gradually formed through long-term action.

Therefore, acknowledging that the world is not entirely fair does not necessarily lead to abandoning action; understanding that individuals are limited by their era and structure does not mean individuals have no room for choice; knowing that traditional paths are not the only paths certainly does not mean all paths are indistinguishable.

Perhaps what is truly worth preserving is a capability that can both critique and build: understanding structure, but not turning structure into an excuse to evade responsibility; accepting that life offers no absolute guarantees, yet still taking one’s choices seriously. Seeing clearly that the world does not automatically reward every effort does not mean all efforts are meaningless. Precisely because no one predetermines the answers, choice, responsibility, and creation truly return to each individual.

And once action recommences, the next question is: How can we exert effort so that today’s accumulation continues to connect with tomorrow?

Don’t Chase Trends; Maintain Continuous Growth #

Emphasizing choice and trends can easily lead people to another pitfall: constantly chasing popular concepts.

Switching to blockchain during its hype, researching the metaverse when it emerged, and then immediately rebranding one’s professional identity after generative AI gained attention. Such changes might garner short-term attention but rarely consolidate into genuine professional accumulation.

What might be more worthwhile to attempt is a continuous approach to growth: not rushing to negate past experiences, but rather allowing the past to naturally connect with the future.

For those with an engineering background, entering the field of artificial intelligence doesn’t have to mean abandoning software engineering; instead, engineering capabilities can be extended to model deployment, data systems, evaluation frameworks, and production environments. For those with industry experience, learning AI isn’t just about mastering prompts, but understanding how to leverage new technologies to solve genuinely expensive, repetitive, or complex problems within their industry. For managers, the value of new tools isn’t solely in improving personal efficiency, but potentially in redesigning team collaboration methods and decision-making processes.

Truly valuable transformation isn’t about frequently changing labels, but about expanding the scope of applicability for existing capabilities. Whether in China, the US, Europe, or Australia, individuals who can connect new technologies with real-world problems and consistently deliver results typically earn long-term rewards more easily.

From this perspective, continuity addresses whether capabilities can accumulate, while leverage addresses whether these accumulations can generate greater effectiveness. Effort can perhaps be divided into two types.

One is consumptive effort. It primarily relies on extending working hours, repetitive labor, and personal willpower. While it might yield short-term results, it’s difficult to sustain and doesn’t easily build transferable capabilities.

The other is leveraged effort. It generates greater results from the same input by improving methods, building systems, using tools, organizing collaboration, and accumulating credibility.

In the age of artificial intelligence, this distinction will become increasingly clear. What will truly matter in the future may not be who can work longer continuously, but rather who can understand problems faster, allocate tasks more reasonably, use tools more effectively, judge results more accurately, and translate personal experience into team and system capabilities.

Effort remains important. However, it may be more suitable for building leverage rather than for demonstrating how much exertion one can endure.

However, career choices are never solely about growth speed and potential returns. The extent of change a person can undertake is also related to their current stage of life.

Reunderstanding Risk in the Context of Life’s Responsibilities #

When young, people tend to view career choices as individual problems. As one ages, however, work gradually becomes intertwined with family, health, housing, education, and retirement.

In China, families often shoulder a large portion of social security functions. Parents help children purchase homes, adult children bear responsibility for elder care, and education and healthcare expenses significantly influence family decisions. In the US, individuals may achieve higher incomes and career ceilings, but healthcare, unemployment, and education costs can also amplify risks. In Europe, social safety nets reduce the cost of personal failure, though this may come with higher taxes and relatively slower career growth. Australia offers a more balanced institutional environment, but housing costs, childcare arrangements, commute distances, and household income structure can still limit one’s ability to take on career risks.

Therefore, mature risk management might not be a simple choice between “stability” and “adventure,” but rather a more specific assessment: which risks could harm the entire family, and which would only temporarily reduce income; how much buffer the family has, and whether there’s room to recover after a setback; and whether new choices can lead to long-term capability and income growth.

After starting a family, I gained a deeper understanding of the importance of stability, and also became more cautious about mistaking stability for permanence.

True stability may not mean remaining in the same role indefinitely, but rather retaining the ability to re-choose and adapt even when circumstances change. Understanding risk in this way doesn’t make one conservative; it merely adds an awareness of real-world responsibilities to choices, allowing courage to exist without needing to ignore potential costs.

Clarity of Mind: Letting Effort Serve Choice #

As experience grows, simple answers often become less and less convincing.

Success doesn’t rely solely on effort, but without effort, choices and opportunities are difficult to translate into results; position is extremely important, but merely being in the right position doesn’t guarantee long-term success; historical trends can amplify individual capabilities, yet no one can consistently and accurately predict the future; social structures indeed influence individual destiny, but they don’t completely negate the space for individual action.

What is meant by “understanding” or “clarity of mind” might not be mastering a single theory that explains all problems, but rather being able to simultaneously embrace several seemingly contradictory things: the world is not entirely fair, yet effort still has value; individual capabilities are important, but platforms and the era are equally so; stability is worth cherishing, yet excessive stability can become a risk; choices require courage, yet courage cannot substitute for risk management; trends are worth noting, but one needn’t abandon long-term accumulation just to chase them.

Seeing the limits of effort does not have to lead to abandoning action; understanding the power of structure also does not mean individuals have no room for choice. True maturity, perhaps, is knowing that the world won’t provide definite answers, yet still being willing to invest time in certain relationships, responsibilities, and long-term goals.

Looking back, effort is still worth believing in, but it is no longer the sole answer.

Effort can serve better choices, choices can help people enter more suitable positions, positions can provide room for capabilities to grow, capabilities need time to compound, and an understanding of historical trends can help people avoid expending too much energy in the wrong direction.

If these thoughts were to be condensed into a single sentence, it might be:

True security in life may not be perpetually holding a stable job, but rather, regardless of how circumstances change, retaining the ability to understand reality, adjust one’s position, and start anew.

We cannot choose our birth, nor can we control economic cycles, technological revolutions, and social changes, but we can still choose what to learn, with whom to collaborate, what kind of platform to join, what risks are worth taking, what professional credibility to build, and how to arrange the relationship between work, family, and life.

The lives of ordinary people rarely change suddenly due to one grand decision. More often, they are slowly shaped by a series of small choices. These choices might not show obvious differences in the short term, but after five or ten years, they can lead a person to a vastly different position.

Therefore, growth may not be about working harder than others, nor about always being at the forefront of trends. Instead, beyond effort, it’s about gradually learning to judge: what is worth persisting in, and what can be let go; what is merely temporary comfort, and what can bring long-term security; what is a path imposed by external forces, and what is the life one is willing to choose and take responsibility for.

Seeing clearly the limits of effort, understanding the power of position, respecting the changes of the era, and continuously making choices within one’s capacity – this might be a simple yet reliable path to “clarity of mind” for ordinary people facing an uncertain era.