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Talking about stocks, gold, and everything in between. Hello everyone, I am Gelong. Today we are going to talk about a topic that concerns every one of us ordinary people:How should an ordinary citizen face and survive the economic downturn?

The economy is cyclical. When there is prosperity, there will be depression and crisis. No country is an exception. Don't think that a person will live in a prosperous era all his life. From a historical perspective, this is a low probability event. The most famous Wenjing Reign lasted only 43 years.

Our thousands of years of history, except for the New China period, is actually mostly garbage time, repeating over and over again, with flags of kings on the city walls and graves of civilians outside the city.

Most of us are accustomed to the general environment and behavioral patterns of the past 30 years of rapid economic growth. Our entire generation has no experience in dealing with economic recessions and depressions. This has led to many people being confused and even muddled, living their lives in a fragmented and messy state, and in the end they still don't know where the problem lies.

Management guru Peter Drucker has a classic quote:The biggest risk in turbulent times is not the turmoil itself, but the continuation of past ways of thinking and behavioral logic.

From the dual perspectives of a macroeconomic researcher and a fund manager, I would like to give some suggestions to ordinary people on how to survive the economic downturn.

First, you have to correctly understand and assess the duration and severity of the economic downturn. After the double blow of an aging population and the bursting of the real estate bubble in the last century, Japan finally climbed out of the mud pit after almost 30 years of struggle.

Our economic resilience is much greater than that of Japan, and we will certainly not simply repeat Japan's history. However, after 30 years of reform and opening up in China, the "low-hanging fruits" related to the demographic dividend and investment pull have indeed been picked.

Evaluated from many perspectives,The current economic adjustment is no longer a cyclical issue or a problem in a certain field, but a global one.

As ordinary people who already have insufficient life resources and safety cushions, we would rather overestimate the length and intensity of this round of economic downturn, but we must never take it lightly.

Second, don’t expect that you can get away with it unscathed.

Many people have an illusion that in the case of economic downturn and economic crisis, ordinary people can avoid the crisis by some means. If ordinary people can avoid risks, there will be no crisis. Since it is a crisis, it is inevitable, and most ordinary people cannot avoid it, and no one can escape it.A crisis that most ordinary people can avoid is not a crisis.

After talking about the above two cognitive level suggestions, the third one is how to deal with the economic downturn.

The best option is, of course, to fight back, to wrestle with the economy and life. I know many people will scoff at this suggestion, because it’s not that many people haven’t fought, but that after fighting, they still don’t live well.

To be honest, most people will not have a good life in this turbulent and muddy background. But what can we do? Life must go on. March or die. We must move forward. This is not because we are so strong, but because we have no choice and we have no way out.

Each of us has the responsibility to support our wife and children, to support our parents, and to pursue the glory of life that is innate and worthwhile. It is easy to lie down, but that is a very humble and humiliating surrender. If there is a slight choice, no one would choose this way of life. It is difficult to turn yourself into a powerful person, a person who can wrestle with life, but it is not easy to be an ordinary person who lies down and does nothing. You may also suffer hardships and gain nothing in the end.

The famous actor Jiang Wen wrote an article, "Damn Middle Age". I didn't read the article, but I liked the title of the article very much and remembered it immediately.

It can actually be applied to many nouns, such as damn work, damn life... The three words "fuck" are very vivid, a curse, you are not a good thing, you have tormented me all over. But these three words are more of a provocation, a contempt, a determination to never retreat or admit defeat: Don't show off, you damned thing, just come over, I will fight you.

This is a life attitude that I admire and like. Life is hard and no one can be strong for you.生活本质上是一个欺软怕硬的货，你不举起你的拳头，不保持激情、爱和温度，它就一定会想方设法把你变得冷漠、麻木，把你揍得鼻青脸肿。

In this world, some people fight for three meals a day, some fight for high positions and generous salaries, and some fight for the world. Remember this: we are here to create life, not to compromise ourselves to accommodate the times.

With the right attitude, the only thing left is to take specific actions. My suggestion is 7 words:Support yourself and don't do evil.If you can do these 7 words, it’s good enough.

Supporting yourself has two meanings: one is to keep yourself alive, and the other is to live a decent life. In a recession, this is not easy and requires doing well in many details such as work, investment, and interpersonal relationships.

The first thing is to work hard to make money.This is the most important thing, or even the only thing, you need to do during an economic depression. Don't always talk about some grand narratives. What you need to do is to work hard to make every penny and not let yourself and your family fall into poverty. How humble can poverty make people? I saw a highly praised answer on the Internet: In order to obtain low-interest loans, the president of a South American samba football powerhouse said during his visit to China that he often stayed up late to watch Chinese football games.

Our traditional education and understanding always believe that suffering will make people stronger, but it is not true. In fact, most people are tortured beyond recognition by suffering, and become cowardly, conservative, and full of slavery. If you don't want your family and your children to fall into this state, you should earn money seriously.

Secondly, at work, try not to be willful and don’t quit without a plan.Whether it is 996 or 896, in this environment, no one has it easy, including your boss, who is likely to live a more frustrated and stressed life than you. A job is not only the bottom line of your basic living security, but also the painful awakening you need to maintain the desire and vitality of most cells to survive.

Don't start a business unless you have no other choice.If you really want to try, try those asset-light businesses, preferably those that require almost no asset investment, such as being an Internet celebrity. To some extent, being an Internet celebrity is one of the few channels for ordinary people to rise, and you can occasionally see the myth of a salted fish turning over a new leaf. Other tracks have long been divided up, and ordinary people basically have no chance of getting involved.

Then, in terms of family asset allocation, be as conservative as possible, try not to buy a house, don’t leverage, don’t take out loans, and don’t easily upgrade consumption. If you want to manage your finances, then believe in the destiny of mankind and invest in some technology indexes that can represent the direction of human evolution.ETF, or, allocate to long-term, low-volatility fixed-income-like products.

Then,Be low-keyOne of the characteristics of an economic depression is that society and people will be full of resentment and anger. You never know what action of yours will make a person reach his critical point and explode. If you are lucky enough to be doing well, just be happy behind closed doors, and be polite when ordering takeout or Didi. If you are not doing well, look at those who are worse off than you, or look back to the 1950s and 1960s, and find a balance and a substitute. If someone drinks soda, you drink water; if someone eats popsicles, you eat ice cream, and the problem can be solved the same way.

One thing I want to remind you of is that if you are doomed, you must not jump off a building. Jia Yueting and Xu Jiayin did not jump, so you should not jump either. At worst, you can just become a deadbeat, and no one can do anything to you - people drive themselves crazy.

Zhixuan once said,"Even if it's garbage time, there's still fun in scavenging, what else?"

If you want to do more meaningful things, then study and read, and read those professional books that take a lot of time. In the economic depression, the least valuable thing for ordinary people is time. Spending time on learning and reading to settle yourself and improve yourself will be the most effective way to fight against garbage time. For example, learn a second foreign language, or increase your English vocabulary from 9,000 to 20,000.

Finally, do not do evil. This is not easy. Because the times are tight, it will encourage the growth of evil in human nature to some extent. Doing evil is not just stealing, murder or arson. All things that violate the basic values ​​of human beings such as conscience, integrity, progress, courage and passion, and all things that hinder and destroy the public welfare of the people and prevent humans from living a richer and more dignified life are evil.

Finally, here is what Gelong wants to say to many people: Often, the changes of the times are far beyond the understanding and coping capabilities of ordinary people. The tide of society is rolling forward, and ordinary people have little choice but to passively obey and silently endure discrimination. History has never developed linearly. Whether individuals and families can avoid the vicious cycle of history to the greatest extent possible depends only on luck and cognition.

But, no matter what, we should be optimistic. I have always believed thatBehind every dead end there is a twist and turn.What we need to do is to exercise, adjust our mindset, observe calmly, try to discover and enjoy the beauty in our current life, and wait for more good things to happen.

Good things will happen. Things won't always be bad, and there will always be mean reversion.

There is a passage that Gelong particularly likes, and I would like to share it with you: Sunsets are free, and so are spring, summer, autumn and winter. Don't feel that life is so hopeless. I hope you are happy. We are always running for many unattainable things, but we miss the flowers blooming on the roadside and the sunset falling on us in the evening. While busy with life, remember to feel the small details in daily life. In addition to triviality and dullness, life also has delicious food and countless blooming flowers.

"The night breeze wakes people up, and everything is hidden in the heart. I didn't say it was unfair, nor did I say it was hard. I said I knew it."