Life is full of regrets, but I believe the greatest regret is: holding the bright pearl in your hand and not doing anything, just watching the pearl. It’s the person who made your heart race when you were twenty-five, the opportunity that suddenly appeared before you at thirty, the half-finished novel you wrote in your drawer for ten years, crying every time you read it, the hand your child reached out to you when they were five, the trip home you kept postponing while your parents could still walk. You clearly hold it in your hand. You know how precious it is. You even take it out every day to look at it, to confirm it’s still there. You keep rubbing it, imagining how dazzling it will be in the future. You tell yourself: wait a little longer, prepare more thoroughly, feel more secure, have a little more money, have a little more time… and then just keep “watching the pearl.” So, the deepest regret has never been that I didn’t get it, but that I got it and didn’t dare to use it, didn’t want to use it, couldn’t bear to use it, and finally, personally suffocated it.