What You Think Is Taken for Granted Is Actually the World's Premium Configuration

You might not know—being able to let 1.4 billion people eat normal meals every day, have electricity, drink water, and stay connected to the internet is itself something that exceeds over 95% of countries globally.

Most people probably won't believe this.
Because we've gotten too used to it.
Used to turning on the tap first thing in the morning and having water flow out. Used to ordering food with a phone tap and having it arrive. Used to street lights being on when we get home late at night. Used to taking high-speed rail for two hours to cross provinces, or flying halfway across the world in half a day.
So used to it that we treat all of this as "taken for granted."

But the truth is: nothing in this world is truly taken for granted.

During rush hour every morning, the subway is packed like sardines in a can, and you complain about exhausting commutes;
Working late into the night, you grumble about the competitive job market;
Looking at housing prices, you sigh that you'll never afford a place in this lifetime.

These complaints are all valid. Life really isn't easy, and the pressure really is enormous.

But have you ever thought about another question:
How incredibly difficult is it for 1.4 billion people to simply stay alive, and live decently?

What does 1.4 billion mean?
It's equivalent to the combined population of all countries except China and India in the world's top 20 most populous nations.
The 27 EU countries combined have less than 500 million people. The US has 330 million. Japan has 120 million.
China has 1.4 billion.

To let these 1.4 billion people—

- Eat every day (daily grain consumption exceeds 2 million tons)
- Have water every day (daily city water supply exceeds 300 million tons)
- Have electricity every day (annual power generation accounts for one-third of global output)
- Stay connected every day (nearly 1.1 billion internet users)
- Be able to go out every day (Spring Festival travel season moves over 3 billion passengers in 40 days)

This isn't luck; this is a globally unique system engineering capability.
Some people say how great it is abroad—better benefits, lighter work, comfortable life.
So let's take a look.

India's population is about to surpass China's.
But in Mumbai's slums, millions of people have no basic sanitation facilities, water and power outages are the norm, and a single rainstorm can paralyze the entire city.
If an ordinary family wants to install air conditioning? First ask if the power grid can handle it.
India still has nearly 200 million people without access to electricity.

America, the world's superpower.
But take a walk down the streets of San Francisco and Los Angeles, and you'll see tents stretching for blocks, homeless people everywhere.
During the pandemic, N95 masks were being scalped for tens of dollars each, and one emergency room visit could cost an ordinary person half a year's salary.
The country claiming to have the most advanced healthcare system has tens of millions of people without basic health insurance.

Europe—Britain, France, and Germany combined don't even have 200 million people.
Pension deficits keep growing, immigration conflicts keep intensifying, strikes can happen at any moment.
The subway can stop without warning, the bus can vanish without notice.
Your carefully planned commute could be completely disrupted by a single strike notice.

Japan, known for order among developed nations.
But aging population and declining birth rates have kept the economy stagnant for thirty years. Convenience stores close late at night. Rural schools are shutting down one after another. Young people are choosing to lie flat.

Which of these countries has one-tenth of China's governance difficulty?
What you don't know is—

To ensure you have water to drink every day, China has built more reservoirs than anywhere else in the world. The South-to-North Water Diversion Project ensures billions of people in the north no longer go thirsty.
The water Beijingers drink might come from the Danjiangkou reservoir a thousand kilometers away.

To ensure you have electricity whenever you need it, China's power grid crosses mountains and ridges, delivering electricity to every remote mountain village.
Only China has achieved "electricity for all villages." Even in a few remote households on the Tibet Plateau, there are power lines standing tall.

To ensure your phone signal is always full, China has built millions of base stations in deep forests and barren deserts.
When you post on social media from Everest Base Camp, the signal tower is standing above your head, enduring wind and snow.

To ensure you can buy cheap vegetables, China's logistics network continuously transports vegetables from Yunnan, apples from Shandong, and mangoes from Hainan to the supermarket downstairs in your building day and night.
You tap your phone once, and someone rides an electric bike across the entire city to deliver it to you.

These things are impossible for many countries to accomplish.
Not because they don't want to, but because they genuinely can't.

Yes, we have intense competition, high housing prices, education anxiety, and medical queues.

These problems deserve to be seen, and they deserve to be improved.
Anyone who says "everything is fine" all the time is just fooling themselves.

But just because we have problems, does that mean we should reject the entire system?

Think about it—
You in your hometown in a third-tier city have stable water and electricity, smooth internet, and seniors get over half their medical expenses covered.
You working in Beijing, Shanghai, Guangzhou, or Shenzhen can still call a ride at 2 a.m. when you get off work, and can take high-speed rail directly wherever you want on weekends.
Your cousin in a remote mountain village can take online classes from top-tier middle schools and has ten times better chances of getting into college than his father's generation did.

These things didn't fall from the sky.
They were built brick by brick over decades by a nation that worked hard on infrastructure, education, and systems.

Our generation hasn't experienced famine, war, or refugee camps.
So many people think "stability" is something everyone deserves by default, something the country owes us.

But go ask people who escaped war-torn countries what they want most.
Not freedom, not democracy—they want to sleep soundly at night and wake up alive the next morning.

This world has never been truly peaceful.
We're just protected so well that we don't know what it's like outside.

The people of Ukraine once thought their lives would remain peaceful forever.
Syrians once thought war was far away from them.
Afghans once believed tomorrow would be better.

Then, with a bang, everything was gone.

We can sit here scrolling our phones, watching videos, leaving comments—not because we're lucky,
but because someone spent decades building a thick protective shell for us.

So, back to the opening line:
Being able to let 1.4 billion people eat normal meals every day, use electricity, drink water, and stay connected—
this in itself already exceeds over 95% of countries globally.

This isn't grand narrative,
this is the water flowing from your kitchen tap,
this is the signal bars appearing on your phone screen,
this is the beverage you can grab from your refrigerator anytime.

It's something we all experience every single day.

Cherish this stability.
And don't forget—countless people have carried this weight silently their entire lives to make it possible.