How Many People Are Killed by Haste? Find Your 'Old Map' and Avoid 5 Years of Detours

The Importance of Patience

You can't eat hot tofu in a hurry. You plant in spring and harvest in autumn. That's the natural rule.

Whether it's learning, making money, farming, or dealing with relationships, many things take time to show results.

I've been working on a website recently. It just went live and doesn't have much traffic yet. It's similar to when I first started making short videos or writing articles. At the beginning, there's always a strong sense of freshness and expectation. You keep thinking that the data will go up soon after you post something.

So you check the data every hour, every few minutes, or even every day or two to see if there's any improvement. It seems like we all get caught in this cycle whenever we try something new.

For example, when learning a new skill or entering a new field, if we don't have a systematic understanding, we'll be overly concerned about feedback. We want to know if it's worth it and if it will lead to results.

We have high expectations and hope to use the feedback to judge if we're on the right track and how to adjust our next steps.

But these things just can't show results in a short time. Some people stop posting on their WeChat Moments or writing articles after two or three days because they think it's not working. No one is reading, no one is liking, and the products they're promoting aren't selling.

The reason behind this is that when we enter a new field, without a proper systematic understanding and a clear judgment of the rhythm and cycle, our judgment gets worse. We start to doubt if we've made a mistake or if this direction isn't right for us.

It's like exploring a new map. If you've walked for five or ten days and haven't seen any people, cities, water, or food, you'll naturally wonder if you've taken the wrong path or chosen the wrong direction.

It's like digging a well. Just when you're about to give up, the water might be only one meter deep. If you quit at this point, you'll miss out on success and end up giving up halfway.

You could also think of it like this: If you keep going, you might get stuck, but if you change direction, you might succeed next.

The only difference between perseverance and stubbornness is the result. It doesn't make much sense to just look at the result and work backward.

It's like you can't judge the choices of people in the past from a historical perspective.

They didn't really make the wrong choice. They just tried all the possible paths. This is a very important point.

When you look back at other people's choices or your own experiences, you'll wonder why you did certain things. It seems so obvious that it was wrong, but at that time, neither you nor that person knew what was right or wrong. The only thing you could do was to try everything.

Try every path, every choice, and every possibility. The ones that remain at the end are the right ones.

As long as the mistake isn't an irreparable loss, just go ahead and do it. It's better to make a choice and take action than to do nothing at all.

Finding the 'Old Map'

When it comes to solutions, it's about finding a map. There are two kinds of maps: the old map and the new map.

There are two types of old maps. One is old for you, and the other is new to you but actually old for society or the world. In other words, you haven't experienced what others have.

A new map is truly new. You can't find good reference cases in history or in the present.

Personally, I think if a map is 40% or 50% new, it can be considered a relatively new map. For us ordinary people, finding an old map is enough.

So how do you find this 'old map'? The simplest and cheapest way is to look for it in books, getting information from other people's stories and experiences. The second way is to pay for learning. Pay the person you want to learn from.

The 'old map' also involves a proportion. How much of the content have you already experienced and how much is brand new and unexplored?

I personally suggest that at least 30% of the content should be something you've already done and are familiar with. You can use this 30% as a foundation to explore the remaining 70%. If you want to be more conservative, you can follow the ratio of '70% of what you've done and 30% of what you're going to try'.

Once you've found such a map and determined your position and direction, you'll have a clearer goal or path, and even a progress bar. You'll be less anxious as a result.

People need a reference system. When we try to understand something new, we always connect it with things we're familiar with. Nowadays, you can easily get this kind of information on the Internet.

So what do we really lack? We lack the courage to start the journey, the companions on the way, the clear direction, and the driving force.

Daily Reading & Writing by Xiaolu 2025.09.14 [Day 740]