Just now, to save 5 yuan on delivery fees, I went downstairs to pick up my own food. While I was at it, I thought I'd get a Huazi cigarette from a street vendor and take a puff. In that moment, I suddenly understood Japan's "lost thirty years."

When the bubble burst in 1991, smart people rushed to take civil service exams. Essentially, they were buying a put option: the volatility of the outside world was too high, so it was better to lock in a stable, low-yield but secure job. This logic made perfect sense. The problem was, this option was held for twenty years, and an entire generation developed a path dependency.

But the world can take a turn. In 2012, Abe started quantitative easing, and assets began to recover. By 2024, housing prices in Tokyo’s core districts hit new highs. At this point, University of Tokyo graduates were the first to leave—bureaucrats in Kasumigaseki work 14 hours a day, their salaries are fixed, and they can’t even afford a decent home. If you calculate the Sharpe ratio, it’s practically negative.

As a result, the number of people taking civil service exams halved.

To put it plainly, risk never disappears; it only shifts. Those who chose stability back then actually traded decades of upside for mediocrity. Now, young people are being forced not to take civil service exams—only high volatility and high returns offer a chance to outpace asset prices.

Why am I thinking about this? Because I’m also looking for excuses not to work hard, trying to prove that "choice matters more than effort." But I know, I don’t really have a choice.