October Reading Reflections: From 'Designing Your Life' to 'Thinking in Bets'

This October, accompanied by several books, I embarked on an interesting exploration of life, choices, and self. I felt like I was wandering in a vast wilderness, lost yet searching for direction. That’s when I truly understood that “life is a wilderness” isn’t just empty words—it can even be “wild.”

Using Designer Thinking to Plan a “Wild” Life

This month I finished my first read of “Designing Your Life” and gained two immediately applicable skills: the “Good Time Journal” and the “Failure Journal.”

But the biggest insight this book gave me was a “designer mindset.” It taught me:

• Don’t pursue one “best” way of living—instead, choose the one you find “beautiful” from a sufficient range of options. Don’t get trapped in an obsessive pursuit of life efficiency.

• Find opportunities through “life design interviews,” not job searches. With genuine curiosity, keep reaching out to people whose lifestyles you want to understand. Don’t put too much pressure on yourself—be brave and create “new storylines.”

• Redefine problems. This shift in perspective helps you stop being limited by immediate difficulties and view things from a higher vantage point.

The “Odyssey Plan” mentioned in the book also got me thinking wildly about three possibilities for my near future:

• Continue pursuing physics, or switch to biology.

• Become a mind-body Tai Chi instructor, or a content creator.

• Start a business, perhaps in hometown food specialties, or in construction materials or technology.

Keeping yourself from getting stuck in any particular concept really does help you encounter inspiring books like “Designing Your Life.”

Is Life Chess, or a Hand of Poker?

Later, I read “Thinking in Bets.” This book has a bit of a learning curve—even the Chinese translation felt challenging—but it gave my brain a great workout.

It reminds me to be wary of “black and white” thinking, because it leads us to make incorrect attributions about events and makes it harder to learn from our experiences. Instead, thinking about probabilities with a “betting” mindset helps us escape many unnecessary biases.

This perspective hit me right in my anxiety about the future.

I used to think I either had to go abroad for a PhD to see the bigger world (which would mean intense competition starting now), or I’d have to go back home for a stable life.

But when I loosened the grip on my brain, I realized I just “want to see the bigger world.” I could also choose to do graduate studies domestically, go north to explore, or go to Hong Kong or Macau. This way, in my “academic spectrum,” many options appeared between 0% and 100%.

This book sparked so many thoughts that I even wrote a dedicated article to process them. The core ideas are:

1. Think in “Probabilities,” Avoid Extreme Judgments

Most things in life aren’t 100% or 0%, yet we rarely say “I’m not sure” when predicting outcomes. Results are determined by “decision quality + luck.” In the long run, only by consistently choosing options with higher winning probabilities can we achieve ultimate success. Using a “betting” mindset helps us absorb opinions that contradict our own and view the world with more tolerance.

2. Wrestle with Our Slowly-Evolving Brain

Our genes and evolution have given us many mental shortcuts, like “self-serving bias” (attributing success to ourselves, failure to luck). Recognizing this, we can make adjustments. For example, we can ask ourselves: if someone else succeeded or failed, how would I judge it? By bravely facing the fact that “our brain’s evolution can’t keep up with the times,” we can make better choices.

3. Seek Truth Through “Mental Time Travel”

How do we maintain sharp decision-making even in difficult situations? The author suggests bringing your past and future selves into the decision-making process. Ask yourself: If this happened 10 minutes/10 months/10 years ago, how would I view it? Through this approach, we discover that many seemingly insurmountable difficulties actually have minimal impact on the scale of an entire lifetime.

In summary, viewing life from a poker perspective might be closer to reality. Only by accepting “I’m not sure” can we have a more stable guarantee of happiness.

Finding Your Own Rhythm Amid the Confusion

This month, I also confronted my chosen major, the meaning of university education, and how to shape my habits—all while navigating confusion and busyness.

Through conversations with friends, I realized I had fallen into the confusion of the evaluation system: “Should I become a ‘person’ or a ‘talent’?” Balancing these two is an art and a practice.

Eventually, I found my groove.

I’ve been reading “The Unbearable Lightness of Being” recently, and it coincided with the show “Dark Matter.” It feels like many important people and things in life are composed of countless coincidences, giving everything a floating, weightless feeling. Life has no rehearsals—the first time is the finale.

This sense of shock made me realize that you can’t truly empathize with an unlived life.

So now, this is roughly how I spend each day:

• Morning exercise, learn some math and physics, give my brain a workout.

• Read some English in the afternoon.

• Attend class, or read, or do other things that make me happy.

I’ve discovered that learning in a relaxed state makes me more focused and more satisfied. As one professor put it: “Finding a pleasant, confident feeling is what you should be doing in college.”

Thinking about everything I have now feels incredible—all of it is such a coincidence. The way society operates is also incredible; the various norms I used to scoff at actually have their reasons for existing.

But if I don’t like how something looks, that’s okay too. I’ll just be myself.