Recently, my life has been really tough. Endless peer pressure and the uncertainty of the future are continuously troubling me.

What if I cannot get into the PhD program I want? What if I cannot go abroad in my whole life?

Increasingly, it seems like I cannot take control of my life anymore. And it makes me unable to concentrate on what I am working on.

But some people say, guilt in old age is much more painful than envy in youth. Therefore, the best thing I can do is live in the present and focus on myself. Still, I always wonder: why did God give me a mind, yet surround me with such an environment? But now I think I can still keep going before finding out the answer.

Here is a system to handle the problem, something I came up with last night in bed.

All you need to do can be classified into three things: Research Project, Math Review, and English Study.

Before doing anything, always make sure you have a question in mind.

For research, it is better to try to solve a problem than to scroll through infinite references. Every period, first catch up on the latest open questions in harmonic analysis. Then immerse yourself in one hands-on problem while keeping a harder one in the back of your mind.

For Math Review, it is pretty clear that your previous method was useless and boring. So be happy to try the new method and aim for solid results. For each subject, choose one question you are interested in but are not very familiar with (that's easy, because you have almost forgotten everything) and that still corresponds to decoupling or other fields you are researching. Then follow the question and let it grow into a long line, even a huge net.

For English, it is very important, and you really want to do it well. But time is finite, so sufficient success needs some tricks. There are plenty of resources you can read, watch, write, sing, listen to, or even play with. Make it a habit, definitely not reciting vocabulary. It should be the English thought box made by yourself. It is very much like the way you learned Chinese. So think in English and write it down. Do not just copy other people’s thoughts word by word. Remember, expressing yourself is not that hard. Writing a diary every day is a wonderful idea, because you have to push yourself to squeeze something out in English from your whole day. And your effort will never ever betray you.

So let’s do it. Here is just where everything starts.