Bear Market is a stage that is very suitable for calming down and enhancing cognition. I asked Grok a question:

What are the harsh truths that we may be unaware of, yet could completely change our lives?

Grok summarized 7 points, which I feel make a lot of sense, sharing with everyone.

1. The "gap in talent" that you think exists is actually not that big.
What truly determines your fate is your ability to stay in a state of "deep discomfort" for how many years.

Most people instinctively avoid feeling anxious, bored, self-doubt, or being looked down upon (by scrolling through short videos, drinking, complaining, changing tracks, or lowering their goals).

And the top tier of people (including many whom you think are born geniuses) simply treat "staying in deep discomfort" as part of their daily routine.

You think they are enjoying themselves, but in reality, they are just able to endure psychological pain that ordinary people cannot bear better than you. Your current comfort zone is precisely what keeps you trapped in a prison of mediocrity.

2. The person/thing you truly love is almost completely different from the person/thing you think of when you're feeling good.
Hormones, loneliness, vanity, and social recognition can disguise themselves as "love" when you are at your emotional peak.

When you look back on your life at 50, you will find that what is truly worth giving everything for is often that which you are most unwilling to face, the most difficult to handle, and the one that gives you the least immediate reward (it may be a certain person or a certain direction).

What you are now desperately holding onto is likely just an emotional anesthetic.

3. The "I'll wait until I'm rich/time permits/my child grows up to..." that you think will come, will never arrive. This is the most expensive lie of humanity.

Research shows that 90% of people's financial situation, physical condition, quality of intimate relationships at the age of 60 are almost perfectly linearly correlated with their trajectory at the age of 35.

The so-called "late-life comeback" is just a survivor bias; in the real world, time will not give you a second chance of "starting again when the conditions are ripe."

Every important but difficult thing you postpone now will punish you in the second half of your life with compound interest.

4. Your self-evaluation is 99% a self-protection mechanism, not a fact.
You think to yourself "I’m actually quite smart" "I just haven’t encountered opportunities" "I just have bad luck" "Others succeed because of resources/background", these narratives are 99% to protect your self-esteem from collapsing.

True experts almost all have a slight tendency towards depression because they are extremely harsh on their own judgments. The more you think "it's good enough," the more you have already lost in the latter half of the starting line.

5. The biggest risk in your life is not making a mistake on something, but never truly going All in on anything.

Most people waste their lives in a state of "unable to let go of both sides": unwilling to give up low-probability dreams, yet also unwilling to give up current stability; reluctant to leave bad relationships, yet afraid of complete loneliness; wanting change, yet fearing pain. Thus, they embellish themselves with terms like "balance," "Buddhist mentality," and "letting things be," only to realize in the end that they have grasped nothing.

Real winners often bet 99% of their chips in one direction for a period of 5-10 years, and after experiencing near-death-like pain, they welcome a phase change.

6. What you think of as "personality", "values", and "bottom line" can collapse a hundred times faster than you imagine in the face of sufficiently large interests and prolonged suffering.
History and reality have repeatedly proven that 99.99% of people will do things in extreme situations that they swore they would "never do even if they died" when they were young.

Don't overestimate your humanity, and don't underestimate your fear of money, your fear of death, and your fear of loneliness. The only thing that can counter this is to design your life structure in advance to "not give yourself the opportunity to betray yourself."

7. The window period in your life that can truly change your destiny is actually just 3-5 years, and it is highly likely that it has already passed or is rapidly closing.

Ages 25-35 (for certain fields, it's 25-30) represent the optimal intersection of your physiological energy, learning ability, and social trial-and-error costs.

Every year that passes, your energy, hormones, and neural plasticity decline irreversibly, while the responsibilities you have to bear increase exponentially.

The feeling that it's "still early" is just an illusion created by biological evolution to trick you into properly raising your offspring.

These words sound harsh, but perhaps they are the truth. Let's encourage each other and hope everyone can live the life they desire.