By Jane Sonnenschein · February 27, 2026

Many people imagine that the turning point in life is the day you suddenly become rich.

Suddenly, everything changes.

Suddenly, you make a comeback.

Suddenly, it is as if some hidden cheat code has been switched on and all your problems begin to solve themselves.

I used to think that too.

I always felt that if my financial situation improved one day, if I had more money, then the anxiety would naturally disappear and life would naturally become easier.

But later I realized that was not true.

The real turning point is not getting rich.

It is the day you suddenly find your footing.

Over the past few years, I really did reach the lowest point of my life.

Not the kind of low point where you simply earn a little less money.

I mean the kind where something inside you collapses.

I doubted myself.

I doubted my choices.

I doubted human nature.

I doubted whether effort meant anything at all.

I kept gritting my teeth and pushing through, while falling apart again and again.

I felt that I was trying so hard, but reality simply refused to cooperate.

And I began to wonder whether the problem was that I was not good enough.

Those years, I was genuinely frightened.

Frightened about the future.

Frightened about money.

Frightened about relationships.

Frightened about everything.

But the real turning point did not come on a day when I suddenly became wealthy.

It came on a day when I realized I was no longer quite so afraid.

The money had not suddenly increased.

The problems had not disappeared.

Life was still stressful.

But I had begun to understand—

why I had ended up where I was.

What I had been through.

What was my responsibility.

What belonged to larger cycles and circumstances.

What came from the limits of my own personality.

I was beginning to see things clearly instead of simply being swept along by them.

But that clarity did not appear out of nowhere.

It was not some sudden moment of enlightenment.

And life had not suddenly become kinder to me.

The real shift began one day when I sat down and started writing.

I began looking back at my life, again and again.

I began seriously sorting through what had actually happened to me over all those years.

The days I had once thought were “boring,” “repetitive,” or “not worth talking about” suddenly carried weight once I began putting them into words.

I realized I was not left with nothing.

I had not walked all this way for nothing.

It was not true that I had “achieved nothing.”

I had simply never turned around and looked properly at where I had been.

As I began to write, to sort things out, and to take those tangled experiences apart piece by piece, I understood myself for the first time.

Then one day I suddenly realized—

I had already written forty long-form essays.

In an age obsessed with short, fast content and video-first platforms, I was moving in the opposite direction.

Slowly, I kept writing long pieces.

I know this is a slow way to do things.

A lot of people do not have the patience to read long articles anymore.

A lot of people are restless.

But I do not write for the algorithm.

I do not write in search of a viral hit.

I write because I owe myself an understanding of my own life.

I want to know—

what exactly I have lived through all these years.

How I ended up where I am today.

What I lost along the way, and what I managed to keep.

Only when I truly looked back at the road behind me did I begin to understand where I could still go from here.

And at that moment, something changed.

I stopped panicking.

People do not grow because their problems disappear.

They grow because they begin to understand their problems.

And by “growth,” I do not mean some kind of mystical transformation.

I do not mean suddenly becoming enlightened.

I do not mean turning into a completely different person.

Growth, for me, is a change in understanding.

It is moving from being driven by emotion to being guided by what I can see and understand.

Before, whenever something went wrong, my first reaction was:

Did I not work hard enough?

Am I not smart enough?

Did I make the wrong choice?

Now I understand—

success never comes from a single factor.

It is a combination of timing, circumstances, people, opportunity, ability, and choice.

Effort matters, but it is not everything.

Seeing the larger structure clearly matters more than simply pushing yourself harder and harder.

A lot of people wait for “luck.”

Only now do I understand that what we call luck is often also a matter of timing and larger cycles.

What I can do is learn not to collapse when the cycle is against me.

Not everyone will catch the right wind and fly.

But everyone will go through low points.

My real turning point was that, somewhere in that low point, I did not lose myself.

One day, I suddenly noticed:

I was no longer in such a hurry to prove anything.

I no longer fantasized about other people changing.

I no longer waited for good fortune to fall from the sky.

I began placing my hope back in myself.

That was the turning point.

Life did not become easier just because I had changed.

There will always be problems.

But I became steadier.

And steadiness is a kind of strength.

To me, it matters more than suddenly becoming rich.

Because getting rich can be luck.

But finding your footing is growth.

If I had to give Lihuo Yun¹ a version grounded in real life, perhaps it would be this:

The fire is not something heaven gives you.

It is something you slowly learn to light for yourself in the dark.

And when you are no longer constantly afraid,

your life has already begun to turn. 

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Notes

1. Lǐhuǒ Yùn (离火运)
Lihuo Yun is a term from traditional Chinese metaphysical systems, especially the theory of the Nine Periods (Jiǔyùn, 九运) used in certain schools of feng shui and traditional cosmology. The current period, commonly described as the Ninth Period or Lihuo Yun, is associated with the Li trigram and the element of fire, and is often discussed in popular Chinese culture as a period connected with visibility, technology, knowledge, transformation, and rapid social change. Interpretations vary widely and belong to traditional metaphysical belief rather than modern science. In this essay, I use the idea metaphorically rather than as a prediction: the “fire” is not luck arriving from outside, but the inner steadiness and understanding a person slowly builds during difficult times.

This essay is also available in other languages:

Chinese version: 人生真正的转折，不是发财

German version: Der wahre Wendepunkt im Leben ist nicht, plötzlich reich zu werden