When making irreversible life decisions, you must be慎重—again and again,慎重.

One thing I really regret after raising cats is that I had the kitten neutered too early. I’d heard all sorts of benefits of neutering male cats, and also the consequences of owners holding it against them. So when the time was still very little, I “defused” the kitten.

The first time I raised a cat, I didn’t do much of my homework. Only after raising one did I realize that my baby is both beautiful and smart—there’s definitely a parent-like bias in my head. I felt that other golden tabby cats weren’t as good-looking as mine, and weren’t as smart, and didn’t have as much of that beautiful, long fur. I was really sad that I didn’t manage to keep a few beautiful, smart little ones instead of neutering them all.

After neutering, you can’t put things back. But when you want to “defuse,” you can always do it. The same is true when you have children later: if you want to raise them, you can always choose to—but once they’re born, you can’t go back. That’s why, through the experience of raising a cat, my understanding of irreversible decisions has gone even deeper. In the end, you only realize how shallow “it sounds good on paper” can be. And you come to understand how hard something really is only after you’ve personally gone through it.