Learning to accept gradual decline is, in itself, an extraordinary achievement.
A person without the ability who insists on trying to be like Jack Ma is just accelerating their own loss, and will ultimately lose everything.
Some people are smart, some are emotionally intelligent—these are their advantages. If you have them, use those advantages to dominate and advance; if you don't, avoid the fight.
Self-awareness and avoiding your weaknesses are, in themselves, advantages.
Going downhill is perfectly normal. There's no such thing as always going uphill, generation after generation.
Don't constantly obsess over self-improvement. You just need to do better than people with far fewer advantages than you.
The topic of personal growth is simple: use your strengths to exploit other people's weaknesses. If you have something and they don't, you've advanced. If you don't have it, what matters most isn't improving yourself—it's preventing others from using you to advance.
When you're clearly inferior to someone and still choose to compete, you're just feeding them an easy win.
So when should you step up and fight? When you're clearly stronger than someone, and if you don't take advantage of that gap, you'd be doing yourself a disservice. Then, and only then, should you strike.
