You Have to Be Yourself

About this book Her name is Lin Man, she is thirty-two years old and has been an advertising copywriter in Chengdu for eight years. Every morning on Line 7, third car, near the door. I type "received" and "ok" on the computer every night. The leader said that "content with warmth" was needed. She nodded, and then stared at those five words for ten seconds - she didn't know what temperature was, she only knew that this month's KPIs had not been completed yet. Things are changing outside. Housing prices are changing, trends are changing, and people in your circle of friends are changing. Some people quit their jobs to start a business, some have financial freedom, and some retire at the age of thirty and travel around the world. She scrolled through her phone, reading stories about those who were "the trendsetters of the times", and then put her phone on the table with the screen facing down. She also wanted to grow wings and catch up with that era. But there is no soil. Every day, I see the office building on the 17th floor, another office building outside the window, the third carriage of Line 7, and the old house on Yulin Road. That's all she has. What can she grow from these places? The only outlet was movies. That night, she went to see "The Truman Show." The man in the movie lived for thirty years before he realized that his life was a show. He stood in front of the door and hesitated for a long time. What's outside the door? He doesn't know. All he knew was that it was fake. Lin Man looked at the door and suddenly thought of himself. She doesn't live in a studio. She lives in a bigger cage - a cage called "ordinary people". There is no script, but there are people walking through every step. She just went along and became one of those "received" and "okay" ones. The movie ends and she is the last to go. I discovered that there was another man at the very edge of the seventh row, and he was the last to leave. He asked her: "Do you think Truman should go out?" "I don't know," he said. "But I know that if he hadn't gone out, he would have been wondering what was out there for the rest of his life." His name is A Shen. He wrote a series of numbers on the back of the ticket stub. She didn't throw away the ticket stub. Later she realized that Ah Shen was not alone. There are also Ariel, Ache, Ayao, and Aran. Five people came into her life one after another. The meaning of Ah Shen's appearance is to make her believe "I am worthy". He sharpened her pencils, covered her with his coat while she was sleeping, and sent a message saying, "Wear more clothes when it's cooler today." These things were so small that she couldn't explain them with "What is he trying to do?" And it was this "inexplicable" that began to loosen the logic she had used for eight years - there is nothing good in the world that does not ask for anything in return. The meaning of Ariel's appearance is to let her learn "pain" again. He stabbed in with the sharpest possible force, causing her pain. After the pain was over, he found that she was still alive. She is not broken. She can still hate, she can be angry, and she can choose not to forgive after being hurt. For the first time in eight years, she found that she still had feelings. The meaning of Ah Che's appearance is to let her see "things she dare not see." He doesn't give answers, only mirrors. She asked "What should I do?" And he asked "What do you think?" She thought she had figured everything out, but he said softly, "You actually knew it all along," leaving her stunned. Yes, she knows. She always knew the door was there, but she just didn't dare to open it. The significance of Ayao's appearance is to let her learn to "see herself by herself." He never makes a sound, just exists. In front of him, she would subconsciously arrange herself—hair, clothes, expression. Then she asked herself: Why am I doing this? This act of "asking herself" allowed her to observe herself for the first time, like observing a stranger. The meaning of Ah Ran's appearance is to "burn her once". It's not about taking your time, it's not about leaving a way out, it's about burning it out regardless of the consequences. He loved her so much that he could disappear, and she was loved by him so much that she had nowhere to hide. She always thought that she didn't need this extreme, until the moment he disappeared, she found that she was willing to open the door for him - not to save him, but to tell him: I saw you. I see you who is willing to burn for me. Five people, five things. Let her believe she is worth it, let her learn pain again, let her see what she dare not see, let her learn to see herself, let her open the door by herself at the last moment. Only later did she realize that those five people were all her future selves. Later, she realized that time would not stop waiting for her. Soil does not appear suddenly. Wings don't grow from somewhere else. The only thing she could do was to grow a new version of herself from the parts of herself that had grown out - those silent mornings, those afternoons when she nodded and said "ok", those movies she watched alone. It's not about catching up with the times. It's about being yourself. If you had to be yourself—not a "can," not a "should," but a "must"—would you push that door open? Intention: Grow yourself