送你一把“万能钥匙”你要不要？

这是一个特别好的类比（关于类比的神奇作用，请翻阅这篇文章，《类比及其方法论》—— 关注微信公共帐号“学习学习再学习”，后台回复“类比”即可）：当你遇到一扇被锁着的门，你应该去哪里找钥匙？

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20180326041100/http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5df32d900102x3td.html

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> By Li Xiaolai · 2016-10-14 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20180326041100/http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_5df32d900102x3td.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

This is an especially good analogy (on the magical role of analogy, please look up this article, "Analogy and Its Methodology" (《类比及其方法论》)—follow the WeChat public account "Learn, Learning, Learn Again" (学习学习再学习) and reply "analogy" (类比) in the backend):

When you come upon a locked door, where should you go to look for the key?

> …… Obviously not by staring only at the lock, right?

If a key were stuck in the keyhole, the lock would in effect be open, wouldn't it? The reason that door can't be opened is precisely that it has been locked, and the key needed to open that lock must be somewhere else!

The same principle holds whenever we run into any problem. Since it's a problem that needs solving, it's like a lock that has been locked, and the solution is like a key—it certainly isn't stuck in the keyhole; it's certainly somewhere else! So, when we try to solve any problem, staring only at the problem, thinking while staring at the problem, looking for a solution while staring at the problem, can usually only end in helplessness!

Once, on running into a problem, you find yourself "thinking only while staring at the problem itself," your metacognitive ability should be activated, and let it tell you:

> No, I have to move my attention away from the problem itself, because the solution is surely somewhere else……

This is definitely an ability few people master—yet it really is surprisingly simple:

> You already know that metacognitive ability exists, you already know how to deliberately train your metacognitive ability, and from then on, calling on your metacognitive ability is nothing more than a habit in your life, as natural as finding a way to get water to drink when you're thirsty, or finding a way to get something to eat when you're hungry……

The funniest example is that being in love really exercises metacognitive ability, and really needs metacognitive ability—didn't expect that, did you?

Look, when young guys are in love, they're often completely baffled: everything was fine a moment ago, so how did the girlfriend suddenly turn on them?! But young guys have no experience, haven't been through things! So the young guy's biggest frustration is:

> Why can't girls just "stick to the matter at hand"?!

(In the description above, young guy and young girl are only labels; swap the two words in that sentence and it's the same fact; in essence it doesn't have a necessary, logically locked relationship with gender…… Also: don't think being in love has nothing to do with wealth—in fact, if you can be happily in love for a long time, you save a lot of the time otherwise spent being sad and upset to do serious things; tell me, does this have a lot to do with wealth or not!)

A gets angry; B thinks A is annoyed because of X, and so explains, persuades, even coaxes and teases, over and over, around the topic of X…… Sorry, doing this will usually very likely only make A more irritated and angrier. Why?

Imagine B as a door locked by the lock X, and you'll see: A staring at X can't possibly find the key, and the door B just can't be opened…… [Translator's note: so in the original; in the preceding paragraph it is A who is angry and B who focuses on X, so the roles of A and B appear to be swapped here; translated as written.] And moreover, A has to follow the rules—can't smash the door, can't kick the door, right?

Where is the key? Back then I found the key in psychology books:

> For an advanced animal like humans, some emotions are opposed to each other and almost completely unable to coexist. For example, you almost can't be both happy and in pain, both excited and low, or feel both bored and amused……

So the solution is quite simple and clear:

If you can make the other person feel extremely happy, TA [Translator's note: TA is the Chinese internet's gender-neutral romanization for "he/she"] can't be in pain, angry, bored, helpless……

The reason most people seem to have "low EQ" (note: I don't believe the term "EQ" really needs to exist)—the "key" is here:

> Do you really, day to day, spend enough time thinking about this almost most important thing?—
> What things, what events, exactly, might make the other person extremely happy?

Think about it: how could people who have never put their minds to this possibly produce a "key" just like that? Most people never do this kind of thinking in their whole lives, always cramming at the last minute (临时抱佛脚, "clutching the Buddha's feet in an emergency")…… Sigh, don't they ever sum up their lessons? Can't they figure out that there's no key ring on the Buddha's feet at all?

Back when I wrote Make Time Your Friend (《把时间当作朋友》), I was actually using this kind of "master key" too:

> On running into a problem that had to be solved, others stared at the problem, but I could figure out that I should go somewhere else to look for the key……

Once I'd figured it out, I found that there wasn't enough time—this is a problem, a problem everyone faces, and then, thinking about it, this didn't seem to be a problem that could be solved by "managing time" either! So what to do? Go somewhere else to look for the key! Call on metacognitive ability to move attention away from the problem itself, keep thinking, and the key was soon found:

Just manage yourself well; find a way to do the right things—this is most important; then find a way to find the right methods…… Even if the way of doing things is wrong, it doesn't matter; that can be corrected after all; even if efficiency is a bit low, that's acceptable; after all, as long as you do it, there is accumulation……

Making money is the same. Ordinary folk have long had this observation:

> You chase money, you can't catch it; money chases you, you can't escape it……

It sounds very infuriating, and it's something the vast majority of people can't understand, but it's also something the vast majority of people eventually have to admit—truly leaving most people helpless! You should know that helplessness is the root of almost all bad emotions.

By 2016, friends around me saw that I had made a lot of money by writing—not only made a lot of money, but was going to pay tax on that money and then donate it…… But in 2005, when I wrote my blog online, I really didn't do it in order to make money. Back then you couldn't make any money writing online; you couldn't even get much "attention," which in fact is very easy to harvest. Back then we all made money elsewhere in the plainest way (selling our own time, or finding ways to raise the unit price of our time), so that we could do some things that were a bit interesting and looked like neglecting proper work.

In the blink of an eye more than ten years have passed. The internet has connected everyone, mobile electronic payment has suddenly become convenient to the point that its cost is close to zero, monetizing content has suddenly become a "trend," and suddenly people like us, good at creating, skilled at producing and able to spread things, have "easily" made money from these skills, accompanied even by countless other possibilities……

But behind this, it is still that "master key" at work:

> Everyone else stares at money; I too think money is a problem, but I think the solution must be somewhere else……
> In the end, I concluded that ability is more important; staring at my own ability, staring at the growth of my own [Translator's note: the original writes 这几, literally "these few"; 自己 ("my own") is meant; translated by the intended sense] ability, is the real "key."

At the starting point, I not only had shortcomings, I even had defects; even today I often say very seriously, "Actually I'm a disabled person"—this isn't self-deprecation, nor is it a joke; I really think so. But the people around me all know that I'm someone who has always been in a state of learning, someone who has always made a little progress every day, and so I have always been in this state:

> Getting a little better bit by bit……

(Do you still remember the sentence you saw before? "Focus on value, not price"? I guess you might have to flip through for a long time to find that sentence……)

This week, what I'm giving everyone is a "master key," and this master key is this:

> When you come upon a locked lock, think of going somewhere else to look for the key……

This master key can be used in many, many places, "with endless uses"—as many uses as there are for tricks. For example, many people are frustrated that their English has hit a bottleneck, so they want to go and memorize massive numbers of words and whatnot…… But the key is actually somewhere else: "their Chinese (that is, their own mother tongue) is just bad!" Or, for example, many parents are frustrated: "Why is this child so impatient?!" But they themselves as parents are impatient; the child is actually copying the parents' behavior! What's more, one can say without exaggeration that many people who think "this world is so unfair!" have never considered that it may well not be the world's problem, not even a question of fair or unfair, but a question of whether TA deserves to be treated fairly……

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Thinking and Action

List three to five problems you've faced that have gone unsolved for a long time, and then take out that "master key" and give it a try? Can you imagine how long these attempts will take to reach the goal?