We’ve all pondered it at some point — standing at life’s many crossroads, watching others seemingly get it all together, wondering: “Should I delay gratification and invest in the future, or live fully in the present and take what joy I can now?” It’s a question that feels urgent in our fast-paced world. And it’s one that countless self-help books, career coaches and motivational videos have tried to answer — usually by urging us to wait, work harder, suffer now, and be rewarded later.

In 2025, we stand on the edge of the most profound transformation since the Industrial Revolution. Artificial Intelligence, led by large language models and autonomous agents, is no longer a future concept — it’s here, embedded in our phones, workplaces, and homes. The AI revolution won’t be televised. It will be automated. The burning question isn’t whether AI will replace humans. It already is, task by task. The real question is: What will humans do next?

When headlines scream about the $295 billion trade deficit the United States had with China in 2024, it paints a picture of lopsided economic failure. The U.S. shipped $143.5 billion in goods to China, while $438.9 billion worth flowed in the other direction. But here’s the catch: gross trade volumes are not the full story. If we zoom in on value creation and profit margins, the balance of power becomes a lot murkier—and far more interesting.

Over the past two decades, the U.S. economy and its stock market have both expanded, but not at the same pace. From 2005 to 2025, U.S. nominal GDP roughly doubled—from about $13 trillion to $28 trillion. In contrast, the S&P 500 index surged over 320%, rising from ~1,200 to over 5,900 points. This divergence has led many to wonder: How can the stock market grow so much faster than the economy it’s supposedly based on?