Many people focus only on the purchase cost when consuming, not on the usage cost.

It’s easy to slide into extravagance, but hard to pull back. Income curves for every household rise and fall. If your maintenance costs are too high, once you hit an obstacle you can’t clear, you’re stuck.

Why did ancient ministers oppose grand construction projects?

On the surface, it’s because it wastes money right now—消耗着人力物力. But the deeper reason is this: once you build the Old Summer Palace, do you feel compelled to furnish it heavily? Once that’s done, do you need interior decor? After both are complete, do you host banquets, performances, and receptions like the Grand View Garden does every so often? If yes, there are ongoing maintenance costs—long-term expenses.

In Qianlong’s era, the treasury might have been fine. Was it still fine by Daoguang’s reign? When Princess Yuanchun visited home, the Jia family could barely hold on. Could they sustain it after her death?

You build a road: there’s initial investment and maintenance. Neglect the latter, and the road falls into ruin. You buy a car: same thing. No maintenance, and it won’t start.

For most people, even after completely abandoning status-driven consumption, their income still can’t fully satisfy their pursuit of genuine well-being. It’s not that they have low desires—it’s that they’re forced to cut back on a portion of their “inner life” spending just to keep their finances balanced. Most people can’t even achieve 100% of the life experience they truly want; many have to slash it by 50%, some even by 70%.

Some young people are still confused. Having grown up in an environment where their parents competed through comparisons, they seem unable to find motivation or life goals without measuring themselves against others.

Others resist outright: “I don’t want to burden myself with unnecessary pressure just to maintain this facade of face.” After all, no one cares whether I’m happy—only I do.

Still others mature early. They realize how unnecessary much of this face-driven engineering is, while also understanding that the real “inner life” workload is substantial. Life has never been easy—and it remains difficult even when you make no mistakes. Plans prepare you for success; without them, you fail.

Young people who grasp life’s realities early and never step off the path still may not maximize their inner-life experience—so what of those who don’t understand at all?