Regarding the traps of education, salary, the 10,000-hour rule, and the "expert" trap:

If you are an ordinary person, without an annual income of millions, without luxury cars and mansions, please be patient and read this through.

Education Trap Have you ever realized that you spent over a decade in school, diligently studying for years, but it never taught you how to "make money"? You might think that your university degree helped you find a job and secure a decent income, but did it actually teach you how to "earn money"?

No, all the content you learned was about how to "work."

Think about it carefully. During high school or college, we all experienced the "study 10 hours a day" phase. But did anyone teach you how to become a boss?

None of the subjects taught in school directly translate into money-making skills.

In fact, the textbooks in middle and high school instilled the belief that being a laborer was the most honorable path.

However, once you enter society, reality will hit you hard. You will realize that wealthy people live better lives in this society.

If you think you've spotted a loophole, it means you're still somewhat inexperienced. Collective interests do not always align with individual interests.

You may desire a prosperous life, but society doesn't need that many rich people. It needs everyone to fulfill their roles and support the stable progress of society.

Resources in the world are limited and can only support a small number of wealthy individuals. If everyone becomes wealthy, the lowest-level laborers would become the scarcest resource, and the societal pyramid would collapse.

If you want to escape this predicament, I advise you to read more books on economics, understand the rules of capital in society. Even if you don't become a boss, you can protect yourself from becoming a puppet of capital.

Salary Trap Let me ask you a question: Do you consider someone earning 20,000 RMB a month rich?

How about 50,000 RMB?

You may think these incomes are high, but consider this: if you earn 50,000 RMB a month in a major city like Beijing or Shanghai, after deducting expenses for rent, food, transportation, and other necessities, you might only save around 30,000 RMB a month.

At first glance, you might think: Isn't 30,000 RMB a lot?

But think it over. Earning 30,000 RMB a month means saving 360,000 RMB a year. To buy a 120-square-meter apartment in Beijing, it would take decades, even with interest included, provided nothing unexpected happens, and you don't get laid off.

So here's the harsh reality: whether you attended Peking University, Tsinghua University, a 985 or 211 university, as long as you remain an employee, it's challenging to become wealthy.

I'm not saying education is useless. I'm telling you that improving your salary by enhancing your education has a limit. Even earning 500,000 RMB a year might be the income ceiling for most employees.

The problem is that the thinking of employees is always linear. Their algorithm goes like this:

Earn 5,000 RMB a month, and you can save 5,000 RMB in 10 months...

However, wealth accumulation using this algorithm is very slow. People who genuinely make money usually experience exponential growth. They might not earn money for several years but make millions in the final year.

What's even worse is that being an employee occupies most of your time and leaves you no time or energy to think about investments or entrepreneurship. You end up repeating the life of a corporate worker day in and day out.

If you genuinely want to escape poverty, you can't rely solely on physical labor; you need a channel.

Are you starting to see the pattern here?

"10,000 Hour" Trap Many young people work diligently, staying at the office until late at night, giving up weekends, and even going to work when they're sick... When they finish working late at night, they take a picture and post it on social media, appearing full of energy and motivation.

However, most of these people remain poor and continue to struggle because they chose a "comfortable path of hard work."

Their hard work is primarily in the service of their bosses, and they are mechanically repeating tasks (like ordinary accountants, technicians, or clerks). Even if they put in 80,000 hours, they are unlikely to achieve the level of success where their skills alone make them wealthy.

These people often opt for convenience. They don't want to learn new knowledge even when emerging industries are booming. They continue to work in the dying industry they're familiar with.

While salespeople make the most money in companies, many employees don't want to deal with the physical demands and choose to work in administration instead.

This category of employees may appear hardworking, but they don't need to take any risks, learn new skills, or bear much pressure. They just work overtime and perform repetitive tasks.

This kind of labor, like a donkey going in circles around a millstone, should be considered "hard work" or "laziness"?

In the end, they find that everyone around them has slowly accumulated wealth, while they have been working diligently every day, but others have pulled far ahead.

The more they "work," the less likely they are to become wealthy because they have no time to look up and no energy to think about investments or entrepreneurship. They can only repeat their corporate worker life day after day.

So remember this: while an individual's fate relies on personal effort, it should also consider historical trends.

Work is not inherently low or high, but income levels can differ significantly. Choices are more critical than efforts; that's the truth.