You Can't Give Up What You Never Had

What does it mean to give up? In my opinion, giving up usually means that you have the ability to do something or could have something, but you actively choose not to. That's what giving up is.

In other words, you have the opportunity and ability, but you still choose to let go.

For example, you have the strength to get the first place or have already got it, but you choose not to take the reward or the ranking. This is giving up.

Another example is that your scores are high enough to get into several universities, but you only apply for one of them. In fact, you're giving up the chances of other schools. This also counts as giving up.

But you can't say that your scores are far from the requirements of Tsinghua or Peking University and then claim, "I give up going to Tsinghua." This doesn't make sense.

When we make choices in daily life, we often talk about "choice" and "giving up" together, like "I gave up something for something else." It sounds reasonable, but in fact, it often doesn't hold true.

Because some things aren't guaranteed to be yours just because you choose them.

For instance, you choose to take the civil service exam, strive in the workplace, or start a business, and then say you've given up other things, like your health, relationships, career opportunities, or better chances.

But to be honest, many people actually have neither a successful career nor good health.

Let me tell you something about myself. It's a bit self - mocking. Yesterday, when chatting in a group, there was a colleague who graduated from a postgraduate program and has a two - year - old daughter. He's only 1 - 2 years older than me.

As for me, I'm still single. I say I'm focusing on my career, but that's not really the case.

I think being single has no necessary connection with career pursuits. Even if I hadn't done side hustles in the past few years, I'd probably still be alone. Sometimes I use this as an excuse, but I know it's just a way to fob others off.

For example, several years ago, when I just graduated at the age of 23 or 24, my family asked me, "Why aren't you in a relationship yet?" I always said I was too busy.

But was I really that busy? Not really. Although I'm a programmer, I hardly ever work overtime. I can get off work before 6:30 every day and have weekends off. Although my salary isn't very high in the Internet industry, it's okay compared with other industries.

"Busy" is just an excuse. In the end, I just don't want to do it.

Even later, when I invested a lot in my side hustle and was extremely busy for a while, so busy that I didn't even have time to play ball, exercise, or have dinner with friends. But looking back, was I really that busy? Not really.

I just prefer to spend time on my own. I love being alone so much that I still have time to watch short videos and stay up late.

Most of the time, time is just an excuse, which only shows that the thing isn't a high priority for me.

I've only gradually understood this truth in the past few years. Reading more books really helps.

I used to not understand that everything you have is constantly changing, not static.

How to understand this? Let's talk about the concepts of dynamic and static.

The relationship between two people might start at 10 points when they first meet. As they meet and chat more, it might rise to 50, 70, or 80 points.

But if they don't contact each other for a long time or have conflicts, this score will gradually drop to 70, 60, or even 40 points.

So, it's actually a dynamic process. It doesn't mean that if it's 80 points now, it will stay at 80 forever.

Just like your salary, it won't stay the same. Your monthly salary this year might go up, go down, or you might even get laid off suddenly. Salary is also dynamic.

What's static? We can only say that the state at a certain moment is static, fixed at that moment. But as time passes, everything becomes dynamic.

For example, when it comes to health, you could stay up for several nights when you were young and still be energetic the next day. But when you're in your 30s or 40s, you can't do that anymore because your body is changing, and so is your health.

Another example is diet. You used to eat whatever you wanted without getting fat and thought you had a fast metabolism. But when you're around 30, you'll find that you'll gain weight if you don't control your diet or exercise more.

This is very obvious among some of my friends. They were very thin in college and ate a lot, but now they're overweight.

So, don't measure the present with the past situation (including people), because everything is changing.

To sum up,

What does it mean to give up? It means you actively choose not to do things you originally had or could do.

What does dynamic mean? It means that what you had in the past doesn't mean you still have it now.

Make your current choices based on your present situation.

Daily Reading & Writing by Xiaolu 07/13/2025 [Day 678]