Let me tell you, the biggest mistake I made in the first half of my life was always trying to fix everything completely. Only later did I realize that the vast majority of life’s difficult problems are not meant to be solved — they are meant to be endured and lived with.

When I was young, I had this fixation: that everything has an optimal solution, a perfect answer. As long as I was smart enough, worked hard enough, and invested enough time, I could find that one correct option and be done with it once and for all.

Whether it was a work project or a friction in a relationship, I approached everything like solving a math problem — trying to analyze every variable, weigh every pro and con, design a flawless blueprint, and then expect the world to run exactly according to my script. Whenever something deviated, I felt immense frustration and anxiety.

For example, when working on a project, I would spend 80% of my energy constructing an absolutely perfect framework, trying to foresee every possible problem and plug every potential loophole. More often than not, it would crumble at the first encounter with reality — a last-minute change in requirements, an unreliable partner, some inexplicable external factor — any of it could bring my perfect castle crashing down.

Back then I was in constant pain, always thinking it was because I wasn’t capable enough or I had bad luck, that I was always running into people and situations that didn’t play by the rules and ruined my plans. It took me many years to slowly understand that this chaos and unpredictability is simply the normal state of the world.

True masters are not those who can design the most perfect blueprint, but those who can keep moving things forward amid chaos and uncertainty. They accept that resources are limited, human nature is complicated, and surprises are inevitable. They don’t chase perfection — they chase completion.

This principle applies equally to relationships. I used to expend tremendous energy analyzing why we argued, trying to find the root cause and eradicate it once and for all, hoping our relationship could reach an ideal state without any conflict.

But the harder I tried, the more strained the relationship became. Because I always wanted to prove I was right and the other person was wrong, to make them change according to my logic — that in itself was creating new conflict, negating another living human being. Only later did I understand that a healthy intimate relationship is not one without disagreement — it’s one that has built a mechanism for handling disagreement.

We all have different upbringings, different mental frameworks, different emotional triggers. Expecting two people to be perfectly in sync and completely understand each other is wishful thinking. The more realistic approach is to acknowledge that these differences will always exist, and then learn to keep loving each other despite them.

When I let go of my obsession with fixing everything, my world became much quieter. I stopped draining myself over small things, stopped getting angry at others’ imperfections, stopped completely negating myself when things didn’t meet expectations.

I began to learn to distinguish: which problems require my focused effort to overcome — like a clear technical challenge — and which problems require me to calm my heart and accept — like certain personality traits shaped by my family of origin, or certain unchangeable objective realities.

This shift is not surrender, nor is it tangping (lying flat). It’s a higher form of wisdom, a respect for the complexity of the world. It’s about putting your limited energy where it can actually make a difference, instead of fighting against the very laws of reality that you cannot change.

You’ll find that when you stop struggling against everything and instead learn to go with the flow and maneuver, many seemingly unsolvable problems will either find a way out on their own, or simply stop mattering.

At work, I stopped pursuing the perfect 100-point plan and started with a 60-point plan, putting it into action quickly, constantly revising and iterating along the way, and finally delivering an 80-point or even 90-point result. This process is far better than stagnating with a 100-point fantasy.

In life, I stopped hoping my partner would change that habit I disliked, and instead learned to adapt, or simply shifted my attention elsewhere, focusing on the things where we resonate. The depth of the relationship actually improved.

The truth is, I did learn this lesson too late. It cost me many detours and consumed too much precious mental energy. That constant urge to control everything is actually a tremendous burden — it makes you fragile, anxious, easily shattered.

But when you truly accept from the depths of your heart that the world is imperfect, that human nature is complicated, that many things are simply unsolvable, you gain an unprecedented sense of calm and strength — a feeling of having your feet firmly planted on the ground.