If you could start a new business right now, what would it be?
My counter-question: Why start a new business at all? To expand an empire? Or because the current business, job, or life no longer satisfies?
Traditional Chinese thinking says: stay in your lane, hold the fort, be conscientious and dutiful—even go beyond the call. I was raised in this culture, lived it, and benefited from it.
Yet in the digital age, people fast-track their ascent, broaden their mobility, and chase fast money for early retirement—a wholesale shift into a new age.
Digitally, we no longer speak of “norms.” A social phenomenon needs time to ripen into a social norm; fast-moving trends consume the very time that ripening requires. What is left is motion without shared meaning.
Driven by economic and social currents, many want to be bosses, not employees, launching ventures on social platforms. Many among the young work ferociously to bank their golden years and retire before forty—my nephew, his wife, and his high-school peers among them. Their lives are not driven by the grandest goal; by the eyes of the flesh, they are simply getting ahead.
The world accelerates; people chase relentlessly to seize the first chance at the prize. Contentment and happiness are outdated. Unchangeable trends set lives on ceaseless, breathless change. But is life itself truly satisfied with endless chasing after the world’s trends?
This morning a WhatsApp message came from my teenage mentee, asking similar questions about self-improvement: “How do you keep a clear conscience? How can anyone steer themselves without an inner compass to begin with?” Her questions respond to my daily prompt published on 15 September 2026: What’s the best advice you’d give to someone younger than you? It becomes clearer that she practises self-reflection she does not yet know where to start, and grows in faith, hope, and love in the Lord Jesus.
As for me, I grounded my contentment in one lived career until retirement. As I engage in new venture, I renew and solidify myself day by day. Through empowering the vulnerable—students, patients, and those in need who cross my path—I empower myself continually, truly experiencing “my strength equals my days”—the promise of the Lord (Deuteronomy 33:25).
As I write, I gaze at the sky, aspiring for a life of gracious abundance—not treasure on earth, but the crown of eternal glory. May my closing lines shed light on your own reflections on a new business that bears fruit beyond the physical sight of your eyes.
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“Fruit—Reflections on Life”
Pleasing to the eye, then down into the belly,
Eating, drinking, play — the soul left an empty barrel.
The tree of good and evil, its fruit enticing,
The tree of life, cultivated through bitter sweat and striving.
What pleases the eye — beware,
What revives the soul — pursue.
With a clear heart and bright eyes, see through all works,
See through all works, see through life,
See through life — and know who I am.
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