10 million? 20 million? Stop dreaming.

The numerical changes caused by currency depreciation are not considered here, because when the currency depreciates, prices are also rising, and the difficulty is the same or even greater. Also note that the discussion here is about ordinary people in mainland China, and the algorithm engineers who just graduated and got hundreds of thousands of dollars in packages are not included.

Assuming that an ordinary person starts working at the age of 22 and works until he retires at the age of 60, working for 38 years, based on Shanghai, where the average salary is relatively high in mainland China, the average monthly salary in 2023 is 12,696 yuan. So let's round it up to 13,000.

Pessimistic expectations:

13,000 a month, 156,000 a year, 38 years of work, a total of 5.928 million.

It seems that even if you don’t eat or drink for your entire life, you can still not earn 6 million.

Someone will definitely say that this calculation is not right. How can wages not increase?

Japan's GDP has not increased in 35 years, from 4.521 million yen in 1989 to 4.14 million yen in 2023.

But there is no problem. We believe that the destiny of our generation is special. The urbanization process, land finance and population structure will not hinder the development this time. Only, this time is different.

Optimistic expectations:

Calculated based on an annual salary increase of 3%, the annual salary in the first year is 156,000 yuan, 160,680 yuan in the second year, and so on. By the age of 60, the total amount will be approximately 10.78 million yuan.

But this calculation is also problematic. Even if the economy does not decline for decades, who can guarantee that one's career will be smooth sailing? Moreover, the salary increase will reach a ceiling and it is impossible to increase further.

So, this is not realistic.

In fact, in China, it becomes very difficult to find a job after you are 35, and if you are unemployed after you are 45, you can basically only work as a security guard.

So, taking an average value between 6 million and 10 million, an average Chinese person can only earn about 8 million in his lifetime by working without eating or drinking in a big city like Shanghai.

The Cullinan that the well-known internet administrator Ri Wa casually posted a photo of is worth the money that an ordinary person can earn even if he doesn't eat or drink for his entire life.

Before I did serious calculations, I always felt that I had unlimited possibilities. I always felt that 1 million was just a small number, as if I could earn it with just a stretch of my hand, or lose it easily in the cryptocurrency circle. But when the reality lay before me, I realized: my ambition is high as the sky, but my life is thin as paper.