My Coworker Got a Certification, Got a 40% Raise in 6 Months. I Lost NT$1 Million and My Job.
He just wanted to be a little faster than everyone else. In the end, he lost the most precious ten years of his life.
Many people think “more options, more paths” equals “more opportunities.” They don’t know that this is often a more expensive trap paid for with the future.
Today’s protagonist — let’s call him Ah-Ming. At 32, Ah-Ming works at a fairly stable marketing company in Taipei. He’s not the top performer, but he’s competent, diligent, responsible. In others’ eyes, his life is the most typical kind of stable.
But only Ah-Ming knows that beneath the surface of his comfortable job, an anxiety-fueled fire is burning fiercely underneath.
I believe many of you watching feel this same anxiety. It comes from that pathetic little balance in your account after rent, family support, and tuition payments each month. It comes from opening Instagram and Facebook and seeing college classmates — one joining TSMC and talking about year-end bonuses, another getting family help buying a presale in Qingpu or Zhubei, another sharing how they made their first million in crypto and planning a month-long European trip.
And Ah-Ming’s life feels like it’s been paused. His salary drops like Taipei winter temperatures. He rides the Bannan Line from Xinzhuang to Taipei City Hall every day, day after day. He works hard — even harder than when he first started working — but his world doesn’t seem to get better as a result.
The Crack Opened by Anxiety
One afternoon, after a long company meeting, a younger colleague who’d joined the company three years after him was publicly praised by the boss for leading a successful social media campaign, and a promotion was announced for next quarter. Ah-Ming sat in the audience clapping, smiling on his face, but feeling a sting in his heart — not jealousy, but a deeper fear. He was afraid that if he didn’t change, he would be silently phased out by the times.
That night, sleepless, his phone’s blue light on his exhausted face, one thought kept spinning: I must do something to change my situation.
That thought was like a match struck in darkness. And the person who brought the whole bundle of firewood appeared quickly. His name was Lao Wu, Ah-Ming’s college classmate. Lao Wu pulled Ah-Ming into a LINE group called “Create Wealth with Passive Income.”
Lao Wu sent screenshots in the group, saying he was running an e-commerce side hustle, distributing a popular imported probiotic. He talked passionately about how high the repurchase rate was, how big the market was, how he could easily earn an extra NT$200K-300K a month after work. Then he private-messaged Ah-Ming:
“Ah-Ming, I see you working so hard and your salary is still the same. Wouldn’t an extra income be nice? With your smarts and abilities, definitely no problem. People like us without backgrounds can only拼 (go all out) ourselves, right? Wouldn’t an extra income be nice?”
That message was a precise key that instantly opened Ah-Ming’s anxiety floodgate. The water poured out. He barely hesitated.
He thought this wasn’t just a side hustle — it was the lifeboat he’d been waiting for to escape the stagnant waters of mediocrity. He imagined it simply and beautifully: he’d still be the responsible employee by day, and by night and on weekends he’d become an e-commerce entrepreneur. Both sides unhindered. Life would have a dual engine. He’d definitely accelerate and catch up with those running ahead.
But he didn’t realize that this very idea of “one more option” — this seemingly cleverest decision — was the first dangerous point of his downward slide.
The Greed Trap: Ten 10-Meter Wells Will Never Reach Water
The first half of the story went like every motivational tale — full of passion and drive. Ah-Ming invested NT$180,000 and took his first batch of goods from Lao Wu. Dozens of probiotic boxes piled up in his tiny 8-ping (26 sqm) rental in Zhonghe. He felt those weren’t products — they were his future hope.
But reality hit him again and again.
Let me imagine Ah-Ming’s typical day. Wake up at 6:30 a.m., dragging himself out of bed. On the MRT, instead of resting, he uses his phone to reply to last night’s customer messages: “Did you receive it? How did it taste?” By 9 a.m. at the office, he has to jump into work — boss’s projects need progress, client needs change like weather forecasts three times a day, colleagues need his help with various materials. He must give 100% focus just to keep up, not letting anyone notice that half his heart has already flown out.
At lunch, while others eat and rest, he studies the Facebook Ads dashboard — the complex terminology and reports overwhelm him. At 7 p.m. he drags his emptied body home. The real second job has just begun — he has to process new orders, write attractive copy, take product photos, find ways to handle customer service. Then the most tedious part: personally wrapping each product box with bubble wrap, packing, labeling, and rushing to deliver it before the convenience store closes.
At 1 a.m., when he can finally lie in bed, he’s too tired to even shower. But he can’t sleep, his mind still racing: Did today’s ad spend go to waste again? Why is the reach so low? How should I安抚 that customer who gave a three-star review?
You’ve had this experience: full of ambition, wanting to change your life after hours, but your body’s exhaustion betrays your willpower again and again.
Ah-Ming’s life was ruthlessly split and shredded. In meetings, while the boss discussed next quarter’s strategy, his mind was calculating how much probiotic inventory was left. On client calls, while the client complained about product issues, his heart worried about whether that important company report was near its deadline.
The results were predictable — both sides started having major problems. The company report had several low-level errors from lack of focus, called out by the boss in a meeting. That look, Ah-Ming would never forget. And the e-commerce side hustle? Without time for in-depth market and marketing strategy research, his ad spend of over NT$1.1 million combined was like throwing money into water without a sound.
Three months in, he tallied it up: the side hustle hadn’t earned a single dollar. Worse, because of initial inventory and ad costs, he was out nearly NT$360K of his own money.
More fatally, the reliable, professional image he’d painstakingly built over years was beginning to crack. His supervisor called him in for talks more often, the words polite but with a hint of doubt. Colleagues looked at him differently.
Ah-Ming’s predicament is the first and most universal human trap we want to dissect today: the Greed Trap.
From childhood we’re taught “don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” That’s not wrong. But many people misinterpret it as “I should do multiple things simultaneously, try multiple paths, that way my chance of success is bigger.”
Sounds reasonable, right? Diversify risk. But for ordinary people with limited resources, this is the most energy-consuming form of internal friction.
It’s like digging wells. Suppose all your time and experience in life is one shovel and ten years. Do you spend those ten years very focused on digging one 100-meter-deep well in the same spot until you hit sweet underground water? Or do you spread the ten years around, digging ten meters here, deciding there’s no water, switching to another spot and digging another ten meters — ending up with ten wells all only ten meters deep, none ever reaching water?
Ah-Ming chose the latter. He thought he had a dual engine accelerating him. In reality, he was using all his might to spin in place.
The Curse of Impatience: NT$1 Million on a Single “To-the-Moon” Biotech Stock
But Ah-Ming hadn’t yet realized the root of the problem. He was trapped, and a trapped person, trying to escape, often makes more irrational choices.
Things started to get worse from here.
When someone keeps hitting setbacks on one path, their internal defense mechanism kicks in. That mechanism usually doesn’t lead them to face and solve the problem — it pushes them to avoid the problem. The easiest way to avoid? Replace the track and pretend the original track’s problems never existed.
Ah-Ming’s e-commerce side hustle clearly hit a wall. The voice in his head saying “I want to make quick money” only grew louder and more piercing because of the failure.
He started doubting himself — but not in the right way. Not “Was I too hasty? Should I focus on learning marketing properly first?” Instead: “Maybe this product doesn’t sell. Maybe e-commerce is already a fading trend. Maybe Lao Wu scammed me?” He attributed everything to external causes, because admitting it was his fault was too painful. And when someone urgently wants to shift blame, wants to prove their initial choice wasn’t wrong — just the method — they become especially susceptible to the next seemingly simpler, faster opportunity.
Just then, Lao Wu appeared again. He pulled Ah-Ming into another group, this one with a more outrageous name: “Fast Track to Financial Freedom.” This group didn’t talk about e-commerce anymore. It only talked about stocks. A so-called “teacher” analyzed the market daily and “selflessly shared” insider information. Group members were very active, posting their red-tinged daily statements: “Thanks teacher, made another lunch money,” “Bought on teacher’s call last week, already up 20% today,” “Brother Wu is killing it again, this one is really going to the moon.”
Ah-Ming’s heart was completely shaken. He looked at his living room pile of unsold probiotics nearing expiration, then looked at others’ bright red profit numbers on their phone screens. A strong sense of unfairness and deprivation arose. He realized he was the fool — doing e-commerce meant packing, inventory, customer service, exhausting labor. Smart people play the capital game. Money making money is the fastest.
So in another sleepless late night, he made a decision — one that would haunt him in countless nights of regret, wishing he could travel back and slap himself awake.
He put his remaining NT3.4 million personal credit loan. The interest rate wasn’t low, but he figured if the stock just rose 20%, interest wouldn’t matter.
With an almost gambling mindset, he put all NT$3.6 million into the stock the “teacher” said would skyrocket because of a successful new drug trial.
The moment he hit buy, he felt a sense of relief — as if all previous failures and hard work would be rewarded by this critical strike.
He didn’t realize this was the second, more fatal problem in human nature: the curse of impatience. The more you look for shortcuts, the more likely you are to fall into the deepest trap. Fate’s bill never fails to arrive — it just shows up later in a form you absolutely can’t afford.
The Dramatic Crash Always Comes at the Most Optimistic Moment
The rest of the story, anyone with investment experience can probably guess.
Dramatic crashes always come at the most optimistic moment. The stock Ah-Ming bought did rise 3% that day. The group was ecstatic, everyone praising the teacher as a god. Ah-Ming looked at his account showing NT$108K profit for one day — more than a whole month of his salary. He felt he’d finally found the right path.
The next day after open, a small dip. He told himself: “Technical pullback, shaking out the散户 (retail investors) without conviction. Normal.”
But by the third day’s open, that green candle plunged like a broken elevator — no warning — straight down to the daily limit down. The group started asking what was happening. The teacher replied: “Whales washing out the market, hold your positions, don’t be shaken out.” Ah-Ming chose to believe — or rather, he could only choose to believe.
The fourth day opened at limit down again. This time there wasn’t even a chance to sell. Massive selling pressure locked the stock price at the lower limit. The group’s atmosphere turned sour — panic, cursing. The teacher who’d shouted loudest had disappeared. Lao Wu who’d pulled him in never replied to his messages again. Those who’d posted daily statements evaporated like ghosts, terrifyingly silent.
The group was left with hundreds of retail investors like him, trapped at the mountaintop, blaming each other and sharing their losses.
What did it feel like? Watching helplessly as your money, your future, your all-in hope evaporated on screen in the cruelest way — while you could do nothing.
A month later, bad news confirmed: the so-called “new drug breakthrough” was completely fabricated. The stock price collapsed to a quarter of its original value. Ah-Ming’s million-dollar assets were reduced to under NT$900K. More ironic: the bank’s loan repayment notice arrived in his mailbox right on schedule, black-and-white, reminding him that after this dream woke, reality demanded double repayment.
Two Months Later, He Lost His Job Too
While he was in a frenzy over money, his company — hit by a poor macro environment — decided to restructure and downsize. His supervisor called him in.
That conversation, Ah-Ming would never forget. The supervisor didn’t blame him. He just calmly spread out his work records for the past six months:
“Ah-Ming, are you okay lately? Look — your KPI achievement last quarter was only 60%. This is the customer satisfaction survey — three important clients gave negative feedback about your response speed and handling attitude. This is your attendance record — the number of times you were late this half year equals the total of the previous three years.”
The supervisor finally sighed and said something Ah-Ming couldn’t反驳:
“Ah-Ming, we feel like your heart isn’t here anymore.”
Unemployed, in debt, side hustle in ruins. In just six months, Ah-Ming’s life plunged from a seemingly stable but slightly anxious office worker into an unfathomable abyss.
Let’s pause here and coolly consider: what did Ah-Ming really lose in those six months? Was it the NT$2.5 million loss? No, far more.
He lost the professional image and trust he’d built over years with countless overtime nights and weekends. He lost the financial health that was modest but okay — now saddled with debt taking years to repay. He lost the relationship with his girlfriend, strained by money and future pressure.
But most importantly, hardest to recover: he lost the confidence and composure to face the future. He became a person afraid of choices, doubting everything.
Another Person: The Quiet Xiao Jing, Who Made the “Dumbest” Choice
Here we must mention someone who took the exact opposite path from Ah-Ming — Xiao Jing, a colleague in the same department, a quiet, unremarkable woman.
In the six months Ah-Ming was busy with e-commerce, studying stocks, and chasing报复 (revenge) opportunities in various groups, Xiao Jing did just one thing — something that looked the dumbest and slowest. She invested all her after-hours time and weekends into learning.
She signed up for a course at the Institute for Information Industry (III), preparing to take an internationally-recognized certification that was notoriously difficult in their industry but extremely high in value. I can even imagine Ah-Ming’s thoughts if he’d seen Xiao Jing studying thick English textbooks at lunch: “What era is this? Still using the slowest, dumbest method.”
Yes, that certificate wouldn’t make Xiao Jing rich overnight. Even when she passed it, her salary didn’t increase by a single dollar. But the same week the company announced layoffs, a larger foreign company actively approached Xiao Jing through a headhunter — specifically requesting her.
The reason: she held that international certification, held by fewer than 100 people in all of Taiwan.
After the interview, the offer came in: a salary 40% higher than her previous one, plus a better position.
See? This is what “fast” really means.
Ah-Ming pursued speed. He wanted to overtake on the curve, and ended up flipping and shattering on it. Xiao Jing chose slowness. She gave up every seemingly attractive shortcut, step by step — but every step was solid. Those seemingly slow, boring accumulations eventually transformed into a leap that left others in the dust.
The underlying logic of this world often runs counter to human intuition. All the truths that can truly anchor your life hide on the flip side of mainstream consensus.
Where Exactly Did Ah-Ming Go Wrong?
His failure was essentially a failure of mindset. He was kidnapped by the two most primal and powerful ropes: greed and impatience. When a person’s mind is in chaos, all their actions deform.
At the end of the story, let’s calmly inventory who actually won in this whole game.
- Was it Lao Wu, who introduced him to e-commerce and stocks? He might have earned some referral fees or product margins, but he permanently lost a friend’s trust and stained his reputation.
- Was it the company that laid off Ah-Ming? They saved one salary, but lost an employee who could have created more value for the company.
- Was it the stock market “teacher”? He harvested a batch of韭菜 (leeks / retail investors) like Ah-Ming, but how long can he keep earning this kind of money? How long can his conscience rest easy?
The real winner is only one: Xiao Jing. But she didn’t win by luck, or by being smart. She won with a more scarce ability — restraint.
She restrained the temptation to make quick money, the anxiety of comparing herself to others. She steadied her mindset, and very focused-ly brought one right thing to极致 (perfection). This is the simplest, most顶级 (top-tier) wisdom.
Buddhism says: “Of three thousand weak waters, take but one scoop to drink.” The road of life never requires you to do ten things simultaneously. You only need to do one thing deeply, thoroughly, until no one else can replace you.
Ah-Ming’s story ends here. But this story plays out around us every day, even on our own bodies, in different forms.
Maybe you’re the office worker crushed by housing prices and salaries. Maybe your LINE has several similar “Financial Freedom” groups lying dormant. Maybe you’ve felt that bottomless anxiety looking at others’ success on some深夜 (late night).
I want to ask everyone a real question: If Ah-Ming’s story could be replayed, at which decision point do you think he could have had a different outcome?
- Was it that afternoon when he decided not to see his coworker’s promotion as a threat, but as a signal of his own need to deepen his expertise?
- Was it when Lao Wu approached him about the side hustle and he chose to decline, investing his time in improving his core skills?
- Or was it when the side hustle went wrong and he decided to pause and reflect, rather than rushing into another fire pit?
Finally, I want to ask the most piercing question: If today it were you facing the same salary stagnation, the same peer pressure, the same future anxiety — how confident are you that you wouldn’t make the same choices as Ah-Ming?
Feel free to leave your thoughts in the comments below. Because your reflection might help another Ah-Ming who’s about to make a choice at a crossroads.
This article uses fictional cases and market speculation reflections for educational purposes only. It does not constitute investment advice. Investing with borrowed money carries high risk; readers should carefully assess their own repayment capacity.
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