In China, social cul...

In China, social culture has long emphasized prioritizing responsibility, prioritizing the collective, and delaying gratification, setting “suffer first, enjoy later” as a default life path. This trains individuals from childhood to adulthood to operate around learning, work, family, and the future, while treating present-day enjoyment as secondary or even a source of shame. The result is that many people’s life structures are designed around continuously shouldering responsibilities and perpetually postponing happiness, creating a state of “always living for the future.” Yet this future happiness may not truly arrive, or even if it does, the individual may have already lost the capacity to experience it (due to time, energy, or desire). Under this structure, the so-called “effort and responsibility” does not necessarily lead to better quality of life; instead, it easily traps people in long-term repression, delayed happiness, or even its complete disappearance. The core issue lies not in whether one is diligent, but in how this cultural default continuously binds individuals to a responsibility system, leaving them with little true autonomy over the rhythm of their own lives or the allocation of their joy.