Why I Love Learning Chinese
It slows down time. People love to say that the years fly by as you get older. But every hour I spend on Chinese feels slow and methodical. When I spend time on Chinese I’m squeezing every drop of life out of these hours, all pointed at a shared purpose. It’s the exact antithesis of mindless scrolling on Twitter.
It lets me use my time for me. Every hour I spend on Twitter or YouTube gives most of the “juice” of that hour away to someone else. Studying Chinese allows me to keep my juice for me.
It makes me feel gratitude. Every hour I spend on Chinese makes me thankful for my past self already spending time on Chinese. I started at zero. Yes it’s hard work to listen to native speakers at full-speed for an hour. But I’ve already come so far. I’m thankful for that.
It feels good to do something over and over. Just stacking up consecutive days listening feels good. Looking at my record of days feels good. It’s living proof I can put my mind toward a goal and do it.
Because I’m already this far, and I can. Very few people have the chance to learn Chinese fluently. I happen to have already spent ~8 years on this crazy pursuit. Just because this grand accomplishment is accessible to me is reason enough to go do it. I’ll be so proud.
No one else gets to tell me what to do or how to do it. I am the world-class expert on learning Chinese on the Internet. Every day Twitter floods my brain with thousands of “experts” telling me how to live, what to think or what to do. I’m sick of it! I don’t care what you think about your life, or AI, or investing or whatever else. I’m sick of hearing advice from others. In my daily listening habit, I get to be the expert.
It feels good to aim at something. My goal is so simple: I want to speak fluent Chinese. I’m not trying to facilitate my effectiveness of high-leverage growth opportunities using cutting-edge…..blah blah blah. No! I want to speak fluent Chinese. That is all! The clarity of my aim is refreshing. It’s freeing. Having such a pure aim is life-giving.
It’s relaxing. The hour I just spent listening to Chinese was one of the happiest hours of my year. It was a comfortable flow-state bliss for 60 uninterrupted minutes. I was exactly where I needed to be, doing exactly what I needed to do. It’s so simple. It’s relaxing and it makes me happy to practice Chinese.
It’s mine. My ability to speak Chinese is my gift to myself. No one told me to do this. No one showed me how to do this. No one did it for me. It’s mine, all mine. No one can pay to have what I’ve earned through hard work. It’s rare, precious and valuable.
I get to be autonomous. I don’t have to rely on anyone else’s permission or advice. I’m learning Chinese on my own terms, my own way. I’m carving my own path.
I get to chase excellence. Who doesn’t want to be exceptional at something Truly world-class? I know I do. And at 30 years old I’m already on the brink of exactly that. I, Will Mannon, speak fluent Chinese. I, Will Mannon, am going to be exceptional. I’ll be so good they can’t ignore me. Step by step. Brick by brick. Hour by hour. Ferociously. You are your choices. I choose to speak fluent Chinese.