TL;DR: A new generation of professionals is rejecting promotions, arguing that the "cost-performance" ratio of a management role is too low. This is a dangerously static, short-term calculation. This article deconstructs the "paradox of possession" that causes this anxiety. The reality is that a career is not about optimizing for present comfort; it's about widening your breadth of experience. By rejecting the "bitter" experience of a junior manager role, you are severing the path to all future "sweet" experiences of executive leadership and entrepreneurship. You will not regret the struggle; you will only regret that you never truly lived.
I am James, CEO of Mercury Technology Solutions. Hong Kong - November 10, 2025
A reader recently posed a perceptive, very modern question: Why are so many young professionals convinced that a promotion is a bad deal?
Their logic is clear and, on the surface, rational. The absolute income may rise, but when calculated as an hourly rate, the "cost-performance" ratio collapses. You must now shoulder the stress of management, absorb pressure from above, and manage the emotions of your team below. The raise, they argue, simply doesn't compensate for the loss of a simple, heads-down life.
How do we explain this phenomenon, where a career step forward feels like a step back?
The Paradox of Possession: Why "Having" is the Beginning of Pain
The explanation for this feeling is simple: A person's evaluation of the same thing is completely opposite before and after they adapt to it.
Before your promotion, you are an individual contributor. What do you have to lose? Almost nothing. Your primary asset is your own potential. If you're unhappy, you can jump to another company, start again at the bottom, and lose very little. Because you have nothing, you are free.
The moment you are promoted, you are no longer at the bottom. You now possess something—a title, a status, a new level of responsibility. You are keenly aware that if you quit tomorrow, you cannot simply walk into another company and receive the same managerial role.
Possession is the beginning of the fear of loss. Having nothing is the foundation of ease.
This is that brief, painful transition period.
Widening Your Experience: Why You Must Drink the "Bitter" Coke
If you use this static, "cost-performance-in-the-moment" mindset to make your life's decisions, you are committing a fatal strategic error.
The first time I drank Coca-Cola as a child, I hated it. It was bizarre and bitter, like medicine. If I had made my final judgment based on that "first-sip cost-performance," I would have missed out on it entirely. It took several tries to appreciate it.
This is the difference between a child and an adult. A child can typically only process one flavor: "sweet." The first time they taste ice cream, it's good, and their world narrows to only that.
The mark of an adult is the ability to appreciate the entire spectrum: sweet, sour, salty, bitter, umami. You can't ask a child to savor a complex tea; it's just bitter water. But for an adult, a simple cup of sugar water, while sweet, is one-dimensional and boring.
What does it mean to live a full life, if not to widen your breadth of experience?
Now, let's return to the promotion. You are absolutely right that the "cost-performance" of being a junior manager is low. It is often bitter. But here is the critical strategic question:
If you do not become a junior manager, how do you ever become a senior executive? If you do not become an executive, how do you ever become a founder?
You are avoiding a "bad-tasting" experience now at the cost of severing your path to all the "great-tasting" experiences of the future.
The Asset of Memory: Why You Won't Regret the "Low-ROI" Struggle
If you ask me what is most "comfortable," I will tell you it's lying in my bed for an entire day. Any form of travel—to a beach, to a snowy mountain, to the grasslands—is inherently "uncomfortable." It is a hassle.
But do I regret it? Do I regret the freezing cold on the mountain, the mosquitoes on the plain, the exhaustion of a foreign city?
Absolutely not.
At the time, I was tired. But years later, when you recall those moments, they have become your most priceless assets. Because that was your life.
When you are older, you will not regret the all-nighters you pulled to pass your exams. You will not regret the time you stood outside a client's office at 2 AM in the freezing rain, arguing with your boss. You will not regret the time you flew to three cities in one day, so jet-lagged you forgot what year it was.
You will only realize that these moments of "low cost-performance" were the necessary, essential components of a remarkable life.
This is why adults can appreciate tea. What are you tasting? It is bitter at the first sip, but the aftertaste is sweet and complex (餘甘).
Conclusion: The Meaning of Life is Interpretation, Not Calculation
If you zoom out far enough, any single action is meaningless. But in the process of living, you are the one who assigns the meaning.
I share my experiences—as a technician, a marketer, a junior manager, an executive, an employee, and a founder. I've lived through the joy and the complaints. I am not telling you what is right or wrong.
In my personal definition of my own "game," achieving certain goals is what I assigned meaning to. You can absolutely define your game differently. You can be a wandering artist. You can assign your meaning to your journey. And I will not debate you, because if you have found what you want, you have already won.
There is a parable from an old novel that I often think of.
A traveler, chased by wolves in the desert, falls into a deep, dark well. As he falls, he grabs a small branch growing from the well's side, stopping his descent. He looks up and sees the wolves snarling at the rim. He looks down and sees a pit of vipers hissing at his feet. And then, he sees that the root of the branch he is clinging to is being chewed by two small rats.
In this moment of absolute, inescapable doom, he notices something on a leaf in front of his face: a single drop of honey.
He forgets the wolves above, the snakes below, and the rats at the root. He closes his eyes, leans forward, and with his whole being, savors that drop of honey.
You think your life is long? It is as short as that traveler's. Whether you choose to taste the honey is up to you.
The true meaning of life is found in the process of interpretation itself. For billions of years, countless lives have, in their own brief flash of existence, defined meaning by their very act of living.
I have interpreted. I have experienced. It means I have lived. I was here.
Have you?
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