When I was studying English as a foreign language, I never really learned the difference between the word “efficient” and “effective” because they are translated into almost the same word in Chinese. A few months into my entrepreneurship journey, I realized that there is a huge difference! And surprisingly, it turns out that most people are just as confused as I was but unlike me, their problem is more than just an issue of translation.

Being efficient is about having many trifle things done. Being effective is about having the most important one or two things done so that the whole project can move forward.

It is a conscious choice between the “trifle many” and the “vital few” as described in the book The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less. This is a very important learning for me and has created a big impact on my overall productivity.

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Continued from the Part 2…

The desire to seek truth, knowledge, and understanding has always been one of the most powerful drives for human development. If something like the government’s censorship program is not within our control, then what about just internally cultivate our own ability to train our brains and think critically?

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Continued from Part 1…

Chinese Communist Party has been doing a “great” job limiting our freedom of expression, killing our critical thinking abilities, and restraining our freedom of speech. Its effort to intervene with every single one of the three key components alone can create a major destruction to our free will, let along the disaster it is capable of when the effort to destroy all three is combined. What is even more striking about all this is that they are so successful that they are able to keep 1.4 billion people completely in the dark with no idea of their human rights being violated.

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“Do you guys ever plan to come to China since China is developing so fast and providing so many opportunities?” My dad asked.

Of course, I’d like to be as close to my family as possible. But there are some fundamental problems about China that I cannot ignore or live with. I told my dad that unless there is freedom of speech, I don’t think I can live in China. I will visit from time to time no doubt about that. I just cannot live for long where one of the most basic human rights is violated.

“I don’t think it will be possible in your lifetime to have the freedom of speech here in China…” The voice from the other end turned gloomy.

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