People asked him with extreme seriousness, as if just solving this problem correctly, all the doors to glory would automatically open wide.
He remembers attending a meeting to hear a young person present a 40-slip plan, data as dense as a yearbook. Ending with a firm affirmation: "I believe this is what the market is thirsty for". The whole room nodded and the plan was approved.
The world outside also seems to be operating with the right answers like that. People choose "hot" industries, learn trendy skills, and say trendy sentences. A female student you met at a milk tea shop said that you changed careers twice, just because "that industry is easier to find a job". When I asked you if you liked it, you just smiled, an empty smile.
He remembered the bun rieu seller at the alley entrance. She didn't have a big sign, didn't run advertising, and didn't know the concept of "optimizing customer experience". She only cooked a pot of delicious bun in the way she believed it was right. Once he jokingly asked: "Do you intend to open a chain?". She shook her head: "Why open it, sir, if I can't handle it, it will be sloppy, regular customers will recognize it immediately.
Her customers are not crowded, but persistent. Some people go away for dozens of kilometers and still come back. What keeps them is probably something special in her bowl of vermicelli soup, adding a little bit is salty, reducing a little bit is bland. It is the threshold of sophistication, something that data can never reach.
The question "What does the market need?" is not wrong, it helps you not get lost. But the question "What makes you feel you are truly living fully?" is better, because it forces you to be honest, to accept going slowly, deviating, even going alone. In return, it gives us the opportunity to be fully present in every breath of the work we do.
This world is not without true answers, but it is running out of people who dare to live in their own answers. We don't need more optimal machines, we need people who dare to do it their way. A bowl of vermicelli soup cooked with dedication, a photo taken with real vibration, not chasing after the number of likes... all carry a kind of energy to warm the reality. Don't just focus on making a "response" that fits the market, and then one day suddenly realize that you have let the fire of passion cool down for a long time.
