Part 4 | The Fragrance and Gaze of Dubai: What Does True Deservingness Mean?

The first time I entered a truly high-level meeting in Dubai, I had a very deep feeling inside. It wasn’t awe at the spectacle, nor surprise at the wealth, nor simply being stunned by a field of power. What first hit my senses was the people. It was the scent you clearly notice the moment you walk in — not a cheap perfume, not a deliberately showy smell, but a very clean, steady, layered fragrance, as if this person’s life itself had been well settled. It was the gaze — not fierce, not deliberately sharp, but bright, composed, and penetrating. It was the posture: seated without haste, speaking without rush, pausing without panic, rhythm undisturbed. You understand that it is not a performance trained from outside but a state already internalized into identity, life and civilization. At that moment what rose in my mind was not “he is very rich” but: he truly believes he deserves all this. This sentence is important, because many of us understand wealth only as “possession,” but truly high-level wealth has never been only how much you own; it is whether you can naturally carry it — whether you have the body-mind structure, the presence, the sense of civilization and the stability to catch resources, position, power and beauty without panicking, leaking or scattering. That is what I want to discuss today: what true deservingness is. And I increasingly believe that in the AI era this will become more and more important.



1. When Meeting Dubai’s Princes, Ministers and Senior Leaders, What You First Feel Is the Person’s State

When many people mention Dubai, what first comes to mind is oil, capital, royalty, luxury, landmarks, supercars and skyscrapers. All of these are real, but if you truly walk into their high-level meetings and stay long enough and feel deeply enough, what you remember in the end is not necessarily those outward symbols; what you remember is likely the state the people themselves present. That state is not showing off, nor ostentation, nor the crude piling of wealth in front of you; it is more like a very delicate, mature inner order. You will find that people who truly stand in high positions often don’t need to keep proving themselves: they don’t need to dominate a room with a faster pace of speech, don’t need excessive gestures to amplify their presence, don’t need emotion to establish authority. As soon as he sits there, you know this person knows who he is. That is the key: knowing who you are. And once a person truly knows who he is, his body responds, his gaze responds, his breath responds, his rhythm responds. He doesn’t need to keep reaching outward, comparing outward or proving outward; he is more like standing steadily in his own position and letting the world slowly move toward him. This state is hard to fake, because faked confidence is usually noisy while real certainty is quiet. So what I saw in Dubai was not only people with power; I saw a very complete “state of carrying.” This state is related to wealth but not only to wealth; related to background but not only to background. Behind it is in fact a whole civilization’s long-accumulated self-understanding.



2. Fragrance, Gaze, Rhythm and Composure Are Themselves Part of a Sense of Civilization

Many people’s understanding of civilization is too narrow: when they hear civilization they think of skyscrapers, institutions, technology, education and law. All important, but not enough. Truly deep civilization exists not only in institutions but also in people — in how you walk, how you look at people, how you speak, how you pause, how you keep distance, how you face resources, how you avoid looking frantic. Seen this way, fragrance is no small matter, and neither is the gaze: the scent on a person, the light in the eyes and the rhythm of speech all reveal how he treats himself, and also how the civilization he lives in treats the matter of “life.” What Dubai let me feel is that the abundance of some places isn’t piled up but cultivated. That fragrance is not surface decoration; behind it is a daily attention to beauty, cleanliness, bodily sensation and quality of life. That gaze is not just innate; behind it is a life state with no long-term lack, no long-term self-doubt, no long-term crushing. That rhythm is not just good upbringing; behind it is a confidence that has been held by civilization, a foundation that knows it needn’t scramble, panic or flail. So I would say that at a certain stage a sense of civilization is not a slogan; it becomes a very concrete presence. You don’t even need to ask about the other person’s degrees, assets or background; sit next to them for a few minutes and you roughly know what kind of energy structure this person lives in. This also made me think in reverse: why do so many Taiwanese people, clearly with ability, resources and brains, still live in such a rush, so stiff, so dry, so uneasy? Not because we don’t work hard enough — quite the opposite, we are too good at working hard — but we may not have learned how to live in a civilizational rhythm that truly has a sense of carrying.



3. Deservingness Isn’t Showing Off but Truly Believing Within That You Deserve Good Things

The three characters for “deservingness” have been much discussed in recent years, but most people discuss it too shallowly. Some talk about it as self-hypnosis, as if telling yourself every day “I deserve it,” “I can,” “I’m great” will naturally grow a stable life state. That is too superficial. Real deservingness is not shouting slogans; it is a very deep inner structure: do you truly believe you deserve to be respected? Do you truly believe you deserve a good life? Do you truly believe you don’t have to forever rely on pushing to the death, pleasing others, burning yourself and squeezing yourself in order to be qualified to stand in a higher position? Do you truly believe you can take on larger resources without getting chaotic once resources increase? That is deservingness. It is not floating, not arrogance and certainly not looking down on others. Real deservingness is an inner settledness, a state of “I don’t have to shrink myself, nor inflate myself; I simply know, quite naturally, that I can stand here.” This feeling is exactly the opposite of the sense of lack many people know. People with a sense of lack often have two traits: first, they are in a hurry to prove; second, they can’t take it on, because in their heart they don’t truly believe they deserve it. So when an opportunity comes they panic, when resources come they get chaotic, when others praise them they feel uncomfortable, when the position rises they push too hard — not because they are bad but because they lack the inner structure to carry it. So many people are not without fortune; they lack enough deservingness to let fortune settle in steadily.



4. Taiwanese People Are Often Very Good at Pushing Hard but Not Necessarily Able to Hold Abundance

I want to say this directly: Taiwanese people are excellent — we are flexible, diligent, highly adaptable, good at finding a way, good at getting things done and good at producing results under limited conditions. This is a remarkable national character. But we also have a very deep collective issue: we are too good at pushing hard but not necessarily good at carrying. Many of us were taught from childhood: you must work harder, be more obedient, hold on more, carry more, and then you will deserve better things. After a long time we mistake “overwork” for the only road to abundance.
Walk this road long enough and a person forms a bottom-layer belief:
If I’m not suffering, I don’t deserve it.
If I’m not burning, I don’t deserve it.
If I’m not sacrificing, I don’t deserve it.
If I’m not proving, I don’t deserve it.

Once this belief grows in, the problem arrives: even if one day you really earn money, stand in a position and obtain resources, you will still have a deep unease inside. You can’t help continuing to prove yourself, can’t help filling your life to the brim, can’t help fearing others will look down on you, can’t help using excessive busyness to maintain your self-worth. At that point wealth will not bring ease but an even deeper tightness. So I often feel that the most important lesson for Taiwan’s next stage is not only how to be better at using AI, building systems and taking on international projects; at a deeper level it is how to walk out of the old belief that “I must suffer to deserve.” Because if this base isn’t changed, technology will only amplify anxiety, resources will only amplify imbalance and success will only amplify inner unease. This is why I take deservingness so seriously: it is not a soft psychological term; it directly affects whether a person can take on the next stage of life.

5. A Sense of Lack Makes People Keep Proving Themselves; Deservingness Lets People Hold Their Position Naturally

Look at many people: they actually have great ability, but the moment they open their mouths they say too much, the moment they take the stage they are too hurried, the moment an opportunity appears they pounce too hard, the moment they have results they want everyone to know. This state is in essence not an ability problem but a sense of lack at work. People with a sense of lack can hardly be truly steady, because they always feel they are still a bit short — a bit short of being affirmed, seen, recognized, a bit short of deserving a bigger life — so they keep grabbing outward: grabbing traffic, applause, results, identity, the world’s definition of them. But however much of this outside stuff there is, it can’t fill that underlying not-deserving. Deservingness is different. A person with real deservingness is not doing nothing: he also works, strives, pursues and plans, but his starting point is not lack but carrying. He doesn’t charge forward because he fears he is not enough; he moves forward naturally because he knows he can take on more. These two energies are very different: people driven by lack go fast but often go tired; people driven by deservingness may not be fastest at every step but are usually steadier and go farther. From this angle, deservingness also becomes competitiveness, because the future world is not only about who can grab opportunities but about who, after catching an opportunity, doesn’t mess themselves up. This is especially so in the AI era: tools, resources, traffic and systems can all amplify a person in a short time, but if you aren’t steady inside, what gets amplified is not necessarily strength; it may be chaos. So deservingness is not a luxury; it is the underlying structure that everyone who wants to enter a higher stage in this era must handle.



6. Meditation and Spiritual Practice Aren’t Just Stress Relief — They Also Cultivate the Capacity to Carry Life

This brings us back to the core that this whole series has been discussing: what do meditation, mindfulness and sitting truly cultivate? Many people think they cultivate relaxation. That is of course not wrong, but stopping at relaxation is too shallow. I increasingly feel that what spiritual practice truly cultivates is not only stress management but capacity to carry. Can you keep your heart from being so hurried? Can you keep your nervous system from blowing up at the first stimulus? Can you not panic when an opportunity comes, not scatter when pressure comes, not float when you are seen, not shatter when you are rejected? These abilities are not forced out by willpower in the short term but come from long-term inner organizing: you begin to see those scripts constantly running in your head. Mindfulness keeps you from being carried away by emotions so quickly; meditation slowly loosens that over-attachment of “I must be a certain way to have value.” And as these things loosen bit by bit, a new settledness begins to grow in a person. This settledness is not passivity, not desirelessness, not wanting nothing; it is that you finally don’t need over-reaction to prove you are still alive. At this stage your relationship to resources changes, your relationship to wealth changes, your relationship to position changes: you no longer “grab desperately” but “receive steadily.” I think this is the most practical function of spiritual practice in modern times: it lets a person slowly grow the structure that can take on life.



7. The Real Wealth of the Future Is Not Just Earning It but Being Able to Carry It Without Losing Balance

If I were to sum up what I saw in Dubai in one sentence, I would say: real wealth is not only possessing resources but whether you can remain balanced within them. This will become more and more important, because the AI era accelerates everything — information, compounding, amplification, opportunity and also risk. Many people may get results faster than before, be seen faster, and have certain things sooner that once took ten years. But that does not mean they are truly ready. In the future many people’s abilities will be amplified very fast, their wealth will be amplified very fast, their fame will be amplified very fast, but if their inner world hasn’t upgraded in step, what gets amplified is not only the good; their original lack, unease, anxiety and imbalance get amplified together. So the truly advanced life of the future is not just “I earned it” but “I can carry it, and haven’t been deformed by carrying it.” In the end this is a question of deservingness and capacity to carry. What Dubai showed me is not only the confidence of an oil-rich nation but, at a deeper level, an aura of “I deserve life.” That aura is not put on; it is the long-term result of a whole civilization, education, sense of identity, lifestyle, aesthetics, rhythm and belief. And turning back to ourselves, the question this piece really asks is: when the AI era has come, when the flow of resources has sped up, when technology makes everything possible to amplify — have you prepared only your abilities? Or have you also prepared to carry the weight those abilities bring?

So for Part 4, I want to leave one sentence here:

the real wealth of the future is not how much you get, but whether you can receive it steadily and not lose yourself because of having it. That is truly advanced abundance, truly deep deservingness and what I understand as the next kind of civilizational capability.

⸻CEO Yang