Zhang Xuefeng Is Not Your Reason to Lie Flat

The entire internet has been discussing Zhang Xuefeng, and I've received a lot of care from readers. Thank you all—I appreciate your kindness. However, I've noticed many people online seem to be using Teacher Zhang Xuefeng's passing to say some things that aren't quite right, such as "people are fragile and accidents can happen anytime, so we should enjoy life now," or "Zhang Xuefeng traded his life for money, and now money can't buy his life back, so ordinary people should just relax more and striving isn't worth it."

These statements are very misleading. First, was Teacher Zhang Xuefeng the most hardworking? He was extremely hardworking, but not the most hardworking, right? If hard work equals dying early, then Lei Jun should have died even sooner. Second, even if you don't strive hard, is staying up all night playing mahjong or scrolling short videos until dawn not harmful to your body? How do we define striving versus not striving? How do we statistically prove that hardworking people die earlier or that laid-back people die earlier?

We must understand that life itself is a massive Bayesian problem. Everything we do follows the principle of "maximizing cost-effectiveness based on prior probability judgments." Was Teacher Zhang Xuefeng's passing related to running? Not really. His running intensity of over 70 kilometers per month isn't that high. The truth is, his body was already unhealthy to begin with—long-term stress combined with severe sleep deprivation and an unhealthy lifestyle led to conditions like hypertension, hyperlipidemia, and hyperglycemia. Then intense exercise triggered heart problems.

This is a combination of multiple factors. But we can't conduct our affairs by assuming something will definitely happen and then reverse-engineer that every step shouldn't be taken—before Teacher Zhang Xuefeng passed away, how many people envied him for starting from nothing, using his own efforts to completely change his fate, earning hundreds of millions, and building his business foundation? How many envied that his daughter had someone to set up bank deposits for her from birth?

There's a question circulating online: in a set of ten thousand guns, only one has a real bullet. You shoot it at your own head, and if you survive, you get one hundred million; if you don't play, you can take 500,000 and leave. How do you choose?

Some say they'd rather take 500,000—that's a very unreasonable approach. A 1/10,000 probability means you could bankrupt the questioner in real life. A 1/5 or even 1/3 probability is what people should genuinely deliberate over repeatedly. Because everything in life is a matter of probability. If you stay up late working today and have insufficient sleep tomorrow, you might recover. But if you say "I'd rather die than stay up late, I'd rather be fired," and end up getting fired, then during hardship you have to comfort yourself by saying "financial hardship is better than death"—that's self-deception. How many people have died from just a few all-nighters? There are plenty of people healthier than you who do this.

That's how life works. What Teacher Zhang Xuefeng's passing truly tells us is not to lie flat, but to find balance between the probability of staying alive and living well.

During your career's ascending phase, if what you're doing has great prospects and could yield twice the results with half the effort in the future, then you absolutely must work hard and not worry about rest. But if one day your hard work is no longer efficient and your body keeps having problems with insufficient cost-effectiveness, then don't force yourself to work hard just to feel productive. Instead, rest more, study more, and wait for the next opportunity to venture out again and work hard once more. #国际油价下跌