Prologue: Do Not Rush to Change Your Life
By Han Xiankai, pen name “Lipi”.
In July 2017, a friend named W. was preparing for the TOEFL. She asked me: “How can I learn English efficiently?”
At the time, I thought it was a question about vocabulary, grammar, and study methods. I wrote down the detours I had taken: how to learn words, how to train listening, how to make an original English book feel less like a wall, and how to say the first imperfect sentence when you are afraid to speak.
Later I understood that she may have been asking a larger question: How can an ordinary person keep moving a little forward when time is limited, setbacks repeat, and life is far from ideal?
This guide grew from that question.
It begins with English because English is a concrete door. It can help you read an untranslated article, follow a work meeting, write to someone far away, and see the world through more than one information channel. But after the door opens, you still have to face yourself: how you use time, care for your body, carry failure, turn an idea into an artifact, and look after the people beside you.
I once imagined life as a game with an upgrade path. Finish one goal and receive the next piece of equipment; earn enough money and happiness will become stable; ship a product and your earlier choices will be justified. Then the company failed, my body stopped cooperating, and relationships and self-respect fell together. I learned that life is not a map waiting to be cleared.
Life is closer to a room that must be put back in order every day. Yesterday’s dust is still there. A broken piece of furniture cannot be repaired with a louder slogan. The weather outside does not follow our schedule. Progress often means sweeping the floor, saying the apology that is due, seeing a doctor, and finishing the next thing that can honestly be finished today.
This is not a book that promises to make you impressive. It offers four things:
- An executable English path in which input, output, feedback, and review form a loop;
- A way to work with AI that grows judgment instead of replacing thought;
- A personal record that does not hide its mess, reminding us to place ability, work, relationships, and health on one timeline;
- A 90-day action plan that gives what you read a chance to become work, feedback, and a new rhythm.
A Contract with the Reader
You do not have to read every page in order. Find the obstacle that is real today:
- If you do not know why you are learning, start with Understanding.
- If you keep forgetting, start with Vocabulary.
- If you understand more than you can say, start with Speaking.
- If you have many resources but no artifact, read Learning Anything with AI and the 90-Day Action Plan.
- If you are in a low season, read My Story, then sleep, eat, and decide what comes next.
Treat each chapter as a workbench, not an exam. Take one thing from it: a sentence, an exercise, a habit to stop, or a thought worth returning to. Knowledge that leaves no mark on life is still only a signpost.
To the Person Opening This Page
You may be on a train with a phone full of saved links. You may have just lost a relationship and wonder whether you are stuck here forever. You may be pressed against a wall by work, debt, an exam, or illness, and even the word “努力” may sound exhausting.
I cannot promise that tomorrow will be better. I can say this: people are rarely rescued by one spectacular victory. We are more often held up by small, repeated actions that nobody applauds.
Learn five words today. Listen to real English for ten minutes tomorrow. Write an unpolished paragraph the day after. Finish a delayed task, send an overdue apology, eat on time, and turn off the light earlier. These actions look unrelated, but together they create evidence: I still have some influence over my life.
That influence need not be grand. It only needs to be real.
May you begin here not to become someone else, but to become more fully yourself.
Next: Understanding