The Most Important Thing for Chinese People Today! Harvard's Latest Research: What Breaks Adults Is Often Not Great Disasters! 7788 TALK Episode 987 20261002
This episode explores the anxiety, internal friction, survival pressure, and economic distress commonly faced by all strata of contemporary Chinese society by showcasing the real-life experiences and personal pain of graduate students, college students, young professionals, and homebuyers. It points out that this is not an isolated phenomenon, but a systemic problem facing the entire society.
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Hello everyone, welcome to Qiqi Baba, I am Qiqi.
My academic journey has been quite smooth from childhood until I reached graduate school. Before starting graduate school, I thought my life would definitely be bright, glorious, and full of promise. But now, after just one year, I feel like my life has stalled at this very moment. My friends around me are either taking civil service exams or working, and I feel like everyone has moved on to the next stage of life. But I am currently in a state where I cannot work, and I cannot make sense of my studies. My relatives and friends at home all think, "Oh, you are in graduate school, you are so amazing, you are so excellent." But my inner feeling right now is that I have only caught a glimpse of that world, but it has nothing to do with me. I am still just a little girl curled up in our small county town. I am in a state of anxiety and internal friction every day. I cannot write my thesis, and I am studying for the CPA, but I also feel it is so difficult. I don't know why, why is graduate school so painful? Why does everyone still keep trying to get into these things? I want to know, if I am very anxious right now, and I really want to give up, what should I do? How should I cope with it? How should I face that moment? How should I face my independent self at that time, or my family who has expectations for me?
It's nine o'clock, it's nine o'clock, still haven't gotten off work, annoying. Get out, don't. Youth twenty-one, save, save. Which spreadsheet was it just now? It's nine-thirty, finally off work. Didn't I charge it twice today? No, find a charger.
Home! Home!
So many.
Everything is contrary to my wishes. I thought my mindset was much better, you know? I think I.
What?
I think I should be fine, but.
Don't talk about anxiety, depression, or various disorders; it's just being dramatic. What's hard to endure is not the dark night, but the pain brought by memories. Forgetting you also requires a lifetime. Without you by my side, how can I get through this? It doesn't matter.
See through my behavior.
What are you thinking?
Protection.
What will happen next?
It's not forced, I have to face it, I have to be dedicated, I have to.
The most important thing for Chinese people right now! Latest Harvard research: what breaks adults down is often not major disasters! Qiqi Baba TALK Episode 987 20261002. I want to change.
Why would it?
Fail like this, non-stop.
Jumping.
Moving.
Who would care?
Once you leave, my heart suddenly feels empty.
This is a living hell. It’s not just that I feel like everyone is having a hard time; everyone has to study, then pass the exam to land a job within the system, and life has no direction or destination. Yet everyone feels so exhausted. I feel so sorry for myself, and I feel so sorry for everyone else. Some people might spend years studying without passing the exam, while others might fail to find a satisfying job. Even if you do find a satisfying job, things might go wrong as you work, and you will encounter all sorts of different people and things.
I truly feel that university is a giant low-intelligence human production line. After starting university, I always feel like life has lost all meaning. It seems to crazily torture my body and spirit, turning me from a passionate youth who loved life into this low-intelligence and useless person I am now. Hello! Especially after starting university, I really feel more and more exhausted, completely unable to move. It's almost five o'clock now, and I am still lying in bed because I genuinely have no strength to do anything else. It feels like attending class has drained ninety-nine percent of my energy, and the remaining strength is only enough to keep me crawling into bed and lying down. I also know there are many things waiting for me to do, that I need to work hard, strive, and prepare for future employment, but I just can't move at all. Even for very small things like taking a shower, going downstairs to buy food, or tidying up the desk, I have to comfort myself for a long time before reluctantly taking action. It feels like during these days of going to school, my ability to take action is degenerating. And I really haven't felt that university has taught me anything. The classes taught by many teachers have been out of touch with society for many, many years, especially some of those worthless fluff classes—I don't even want to talk about it. Having a bunch of teachers who have never started a business lecture on innovation and entrepreneurship, and having people with no extensive job-hunting experience teach employment guidance, isn't this a joke? Classes just consist of reading straight from PPT slides or books. What on earth is the point of such classes existing? Is it really just to create jobs for teachers? Many times I have to ask myself: you can't learn knowledge that can be directly used upon graduation, you can't learn survival skills for society, and yet you are living so miserably—then why on earth did you come to this university? Paying money just to suffer! Moreover, ever since starting university, I have been extremely, extremely anxious. I get emo super easily because I don't have the energy to do anything else. When I lie in bed, I can only scroll through short videos, but every time I scroll for a bit, I get extremely anxious. Especially after the release of DeepSeek, the internet was flooded with news saying DeepSeek is about to replace humans and everyone is going to lose their jobs, or that someone used DeepSeek plus something else for three days and made a fortune, directly achieving financial freedom. It feels like everyone is using this thing to make money, while I, as someone capable of using it, can't accomplish anything. Then many times I tried to use the methods they mentioned to do something, but every time I would get stuck at some step, unable to make any progress no matter what, and then reluctantly give up. In the end, when I crawled back into bed to scroll through videos and came across this kind of stuff again, at that moment I would feel like life was hopeless. And do you know what's even more bizarre? I found that university is like a hotbed for depression. I don't know how many people were diagnosed with depression only after starting university, but anyway, I was diagnosed with a triple negative health condition of depression, anxiety, and obsessive-compulsive disorder after starting university. I have to spend a huge amount of time every day fighting my negative emotions, resulting in an extremely poor mental state. Those friends of mine around me who aren't depressed don't have a much better mental state either. To sum it up in one sentence, it is really rare to see a normal person with a sound mental state inside a university. Therefore, until now I still haven't figured out what meaning university holds for me. From my perspective, this giant low-intelligence human production line is bit by bit killing my spirit and drive, turning me into an increasingly low-quality person, powerless to pursue the future I want.
Why did going to college turn me, a once optimistic and cheerful little girl, into this? I want to share my personal experience with prospective college freshmen as a warning so that you will be extremely careful when choosing your college applications. First is the dormitory environment. I think those who have the means should avoid eight-person dorms, especially those who have had their own room since childhood and have never shared a living space with others. You truly cannot handle the cramped and narrow feeling of an eight-person dorm, where eight people share one desk and two chairs with zero private space. It will genuinely drive you crazy. Furthermore, the admissions brochures of many schools play word games. If you check their official websites, they will claim they have four-person, six-person, and eight-person dorms. Once you actually believe it and enroll, you will find that four-person and six-person dorms do exist, but you have to compete for them. When hundreds of people are fighting for just a few four-person spots, do you think you have that kind of luck? Who can actually get one? In the end, four of the dorms will be allocated to well-connected students through guanxi, and it has nothing to do with you; it will never be your turn. Next are the rules and regulations. The rules and regulations of many schools are extremely anti-human. They are not designed to help you study or prepare you for employment at all; they are entirely a perverted compliance test. This includes, but is not limited to, getting up at 6:30 AM for morning exercise, room inspections at 7:00 AM to check if there is trash in your trash can and if your blankets are folded into tofu blocks, morning self-study, evening self-study, and mandatory participation in large-scale activities like sports meetings. Not only are you forced to participate, but attendance is taken, and points are deducted if you are absent during roll call. Even worse, you are not allowed to go home on weekends unless you have a legitimate reason, such as a family member passing away or falling ill yourself. If you do not have a so-called legitimate reason, or if your reason is just that you are homesick, then keep dreaming—you are not going back, and calls from your parents won't work either. Hearing this, some people might argue with me, saying they don't care about awards or honors, that the counselor is just their service provider, and that they don't need to listen to these rules at all. Then you are dead wrong. Why? Because many schools set this up as a course, a course with credits, and assign a grand-sounding name to it, similar to conduct, moral education, or college student quality. If you do not comply with their rules and regulations, OK, then fine, you fail this course. What does failing affect? It affects your graduation, leading to delayed graduation, or failing to get a diploma altogether. Moreover, the vicious part of this course is that it cannot be retaken or made up. How do you make up a daily grade like moral conduct? How do you retake it? There is simply no way, so you can only have your graduation delayed. You have passed all the credits for your other major courses, but your graduation is delayed just because you didn't do morning exercises, didn't show up to the sports meeting, or didn't fold your blanket. It sounds unbelievable, but this is the reality. Another super huge trap is internships. You must find out what internships are actually like at your school and in your major—whether they are self-arranged or organized by the school. If you are doing a school-organized internship, you must find out what kind of enterprise the school is sending you to. Because there are many schools where the dean or president packages and sells students to a certain enterprise. For example, if this enterprise needs to hire employees from the public for twelve yuan an hour, but they buy you from the school for ten yuan an hour, the school only pays you eight yuan. The main thing is that this job isn't any good either; in all likelihood, it has nothing to do with your major. Social security, the five insurances and one housing fund, are completely out of the question, and you can't even meet the eight-hour workday standard, let alone dream of a two-day weekend. Furthermore, the internship salary for many people is ridiculously low, failing to even cover their own rent and food expenses, requiring them to ask their parents for money. A student goes to do an internship and work for a whole year, and their parents still have to subsidize them out of pocket just so they can work. As for the student union, I can only use four words to describe it: protecting one another in corruption. How do male students get promoted? By giving gifts. And what do female students rely on? Dating student union members of a higher rank. I never expected to see power-for-sex transactions on a university campus! You can just imagine it yourselves. They pull all sorts of strings to climb up the ladder, and once they attain this power, how will they abuse it? How will they push this power to the absolute limit? How will they torture you? I can only boil it down to one sentence: using the minimal amount of power to make things as difficult for others as possible, acting like a petty tyrant with a feather as an arrow. Many people will say again, 'Then I'll just look for a teacher; surely someone can keep them in check.' I'll go to the counselor. But it's actually completely useless; they simply don't want to care. Let me give you an example: suppose your family keeps a dog to guard the house. Suddenly, one day, someone comes up to you and says, 'Hey, your dog is so fierce. Can you do something about it? Stop it from barking, stop it from acting fierce, stop it from biting people, stop it from guarding the house.' Would you care? Of course not. You would only feel happy, thinking, 'This dog is so great! It really can guard the house. Awesome.' The final point is the school atmosphere. You must choose this very carefully. Some people might think that the bullying I suffered is normal because I look like an outcast and don't seem like a normal person, but in reality, that is not the case at all.
In our school, there are many young girls who look very innocent and normal. As long as they wear a short skirt or stockings, they get crazily cyberbullied, have lewd rumors spread about them, are labeled as 'improper,' and are even ganged up on by other girls. However, in my memory, shouldn't universities be the most open places in all of Chinese society? Why is it like this? On top of that, many people are far away from home at university, with no parents, relatives, or friends around. And adding another buff, they live in eight-person dorms with no private space. So, in such a closed environment, being the target of lewd rumors and being ganged up on—you can imagine how terrifying that is, right? You can imagine how devastated a person would be in such an environment. Therefore, I sincerely hope that everyone will thoroughly research these things before applying to universities, so you don't repeat my mistakes or relive my tragedy.
Hello everyone, this is a backlog video about my experience right after my first day working as an aviation drifter in Hangzhou, when I rushed back to Wuhan to pack for my graduation show and returned to Hangzhou overnight. Rushing to the train station after work and hitting Hangzhou's evening rush hour was truly exhausting. I've never been able to sit down on the subway; I always have to squeeze near the doors so it's easy to get off at my stop. Finally arriving at the train station, since I didn't have time for dinner, I bought some bread at a convenience store to fill my stomach. To save money, I bought an overnight hard-seat ticket. After the uncle next to me got off midway, I could finally stretch my legs a bit. At that point, I couldn't care less about my posture because I was just too exhausted. From the setbacks during the interviews over the past few days, changing accommodation every day, to taking an overnight hard-seat train from Wuhan back to Hangzhou, I felt like my body had reached its absolute limit. Finally making it through to dawn, I couldn't care less about my messy hair and disheveled appearance. As soon as I got off at Wuchang Station, I rushed back to school. Time was very tight because I had a 9 PM ticket back to Hangzhou, leaving me with only these few hours during the day to pack my luggage—whatever could be packed and mailed home.
Mailed home, and whatever could be taken from Hangzhou, I would take.
Watching the deliveryman take away my luggage bag by bag, I finally felt a real sense of graduation. When 8 o'clock in the evening rolled around, it was time for me to head back to Hangzhou. My roommate came out to see me off; who knows when we'll meet again next time. Leaving in such a rush, I didn't even have time to say goodbye to everyone properly. This was my last time watching your figure fade away. Hailing a cab to the subway station, taking one last look at the watermelon stand I often bought from, it was truly time to say goodbye to Wuhan. The city where I lived for four years, and I was setting off for Hangzhou like this with all my worldly possessions. Due to severe sleep deprivation, my body was extremely tired back then, and I just pushed through the night until I reached Hangzhou. Dawn had broken, and I was in Hangzhou. There were very long stairs when exiting the station. This kind-hearted sister in white asked if I needed help. Oh god, I honestly felt like crying. That kind of goodwill and warmth between strangers gave me so much strength. Carrying all my worldly possessions back to my apartment. After getting off the subway, I couldn't bear to take a taxi, so I pushed my suitcase for a kilometer. I hadn't had breakfast yet, so I bought a pancake on the side of the road. Dropped back at the apartment yesterday, and finally back at the apartment now. At this moment, I was still putting on a brave face, but after putting down my luggage, I couldn't hold it in anymore and burst into tears. I was really so tired, so lost, and so scared at that time. Just like that, all by myself, I spent a week completing the job-hunting and apartment-renting process as an aviation drifter. Even though everything was settled, I really didn't know if the future direction was right and suitable for me. While feeling lost about my tomorrow, I was also proud of my own bravery. I had no relatives or friends in Hangzhou, and from now on I would have to live here all by myself. After calming down, I started unpacking and organizing my luggage, bringing over the books I usually read from school. I couldn't bear to throw away this stack of books upon graduation. In the past, whenever I felt anxious, I liked to shift my attention through reading. I also brought over the hangers that everyone didn't want in the dorm, colorful ones, saving wherever possible, not.
The fog clears, everything finally becomes clear, and both love and hate become memories. Forgetting the past, brilliant flowers bloom across the horizon, waiting for an ending. How I want to muster the courage, to properly cherish you, without letting.
Hey, I booked a hotel room for myself, don't try to persuade me, cheer up right away.
Alright?
To be honest, I am really too tired. Um, tonight I want to give myself a break, not thinking about tomorrow. Not calculating how much money is left in my pocket, nor thinking about how to live in the future. I-I-I am going to order myself a few takeout meals that I usually want to eat but couldn't bear to afford. Once I'm full, I'll go to sleep. At this moment, no one is controlling me, no one is scolding me, I am just myself. I-I-I am just going to be a useless piece of trash.
For those who bought houses in 2018 and 2019, how much have you lost now? Take our house for example, 70 square meters, bought in Zhengzhou in 2018. The down payment at the time was 800,000, with a 400,000 loan. From 2018 until now, I've paid 150,000 in interest, plus basic renovation—everyone can take a look, our renovation cost 100,000 yuan at the time. Today, I took my property certificate downstairs and said I couldn't take it anymore. I went to ask at the agency to see how much our house has lost in value now. I went to the agency and said, 'Young man, please list it for your elder sister and see what this house is worth now.' They asked, 'Sister, how much do you want to sell it for?' I said, 'How could it be anything less than 1 million?' He replied directly, 'Sister, the one right above you that your neighbors put up last month—it took over a year on the market just to sell for 600,000.' I burst out laughing on the spot. A 1.45 million yuan house, and you're telling me now it's worth 600,000, only worth 600,000? How much have I lost? I lost 850,000! Is there any justice left in this world? Wh-wh-where is the justice? Asking if I still want to sell? Sell what? Just come back, move back straight away, what else can you do besides live in it? You think if I want the price to go up now, it can go up? I just want to ask, for those who bought houses in 2018 and 2019, how much have you all lost now?
Actually, every day when I share the real feelings of some people inside the Great Firewall with my friends, I hope everyone can—uh, because I often receive messages where many friends truly believe that nothing is happening inside the Great Firewall, and that everyone is still living quite well, or they have the idea that, "Hey, the lives of my friends inside the Great Firewall are going very well, and they haven't been affected by any of this; aren't economic or survival issues being exaggerated?" Uh, I just want to tell everyone that we can look at different people across various industries and social strata to see where their pain points and feelings lie. If this scope expands to the current extent, it can basically no longer be considered an issue of a single industry; it must be a problem that has emerged in the entire society, because this is a fatal blow to the middle and lower classes of every industry, and everyone is having a hard time.
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