An aerial drone photo taken on April 4, 2025 shows tourists visiting Huquan Ecological Park in Mile City, Honghe Hani and Yi Autonomous Prefecture, southwest China's Yunnan Province. (Xinhua/Hu Chao)BEIJING, April 19 (Xinhua) -- Ten years ago, 35-year-old Gu Shaoqiang wrote a sentence that would come to define her and echo a quiet yearning shared by many. It was a resignation letter, but it read more like a line of poetry: "The world is so big, I want to go see it."At the time, Gu was a psychology teacher at a public high school in Henan Province. She lived the kind of life that rarely makes headlines, predictable, steady and intentionally unremarkable. However, her note, shared online, resonated deeply with many, striking a raw nerve. It was shared and re-shared, and quoted by strangers who didn't even know her name.To many, Gu wasn't just quitting her job. She was stepping out of the script. That one sentence, earnest and fearless, awakened something delicate yet familiar in countless readers: the dormant wish to pause, to wander, to live on one's own terms.Now, Gu is back, but not in the classroom. She works as an online counselor, offering psychological and family education advice on short video platforms. Viewers still ask her the same question: Do you regret your choice?"There were a few things, perhaps, that didn't unfold as I'd hoped," she said, her voice steady. "But not the choice to leave. That's something I'll never regret."In 2015, after eleven years of teaching, Gu found herself sinking into a familiar fog of burnout. She recalled that three days before writing her resignation letter, she had just wrapped up the last psychology class of the semester, during which her students were writing letters to their future selves.As they scribbled away at their desks, she found herself drifting into her thoughts, imagining what her life might look like two decades down the road. At 55, she would be approaching retirement. It was in that quiet moment of reflection that she realized: a life of routine wasn't what she truly desired. So many dreams, still waiting.Twenty minutes later, she had made up her mind: she would resign. Her life was about to change in ways she couldn't yet grasp, yet the allure of that uncertainty was impossible to resist.Gu has always been a person who thrives on motion, both physical and intellectual. Even as a teacher, she made it a priority to carve out time for her personal passions. She volunteered during the holidays and worked as a part-time singer in a bar after school, drawn by her love for singing the songs of iconic Chinese singer Faye Wong.Her independence, too, was nurtured in a home where support was unconditional and expectations were never rigid. When her mother heard of her resignation, she simply asked, "Have you decided where you're going next?"With that support, Gu set off on a journey with her modest savings of 11,000 yuan (about 1,526 U.S. dollars), embracing a life of travel that would take her far beyond the classroom.To her, the essence of travel extended beyond mere sightseeing; it was about immersing herself in the rhythm of local life. Months later, Gu decided to settle in a quiet ancient town at the foot of Qingcheng Mountain in Sichuan Province.The air was crisp, the people were warm, and the cost of living was low. The town had everything she had hoped for: mountains, water, simplicity."I love the simple, peaceful life in the ancient town," she said. "It makes me reluctant to return to the hustle and bustle of the city. I'm content to be a small town girl."Her life followed a simple rhythm, donning a straw hat, slipping into handmade sandals, and carrying a woven basket to the local market. She cycled through the winding streets, humming along to familiar tunes and weaving through the market crowds. Life, at last, slowed down, moving at its own gentle pace, unhurried and unperturbed.That same year, she married the man she had met while traveling in Yunnan Province. Together, they opened a small guesthouse, and a year later, their daughter was born.Running a guesthouse was far from easy. Gu began from scratch, learning the ropes of hospitality with the kind of persistence that she had made a name on.Despite the obstacles, these challenges enriched her life. In the midst of her daily routine, she found a sense of poetry. In her free time, Gu practiced calligraphy, played the guqin, and sipped tea."The life of a guesthouse owner has given me more freedom," Gu said. "It allowed me to explore another way of living." During the off-season, she would take her daughter on trips, wandering the country.In 2021, however, her mother began to experience health concerns, prompting Gu to return to Henan with her family. She now works as an online counselor, hosting live-streamed sessions that often last five hours, finishing late in the evening.Gu seemed to have returned to square one, back in the city she had once left behind, stepping once again into the role of offering psychological counsel. Yet, the person who returned was not the same person who had left. As an internet user adeptly put it, "She came back with a broader perspective."The public reactions to her return reflect a shift in the cultural air. The once rigid boundaries of success and failure have softened, replaced by more nuanced understandings of life's possibilities. Over the past decade, the pursuit of personal fulfillment has taken on many shapes and forms.On social media, countless Chinese people like Gu are sharing their bold choices: "Pursuing a PhD later in life," "Switching careers at 40," "Starting fresh in a new city." These stories, once rare, have now become common, highlighting the diverse paths that make life so compelling.Reflecting on the viral success of her resignation letter, Gu said, "That could only have happened ten years ago. Today, no one would be as surprised. People are more open to individual differences and more in tune with their own desires. That's real progress."