Mencius
The flood-like breath
It accumulates, and it cannot be hurried
Mencius, Gongsun Chou I
Asked what the flood-like breath was, he said it is hard to put into words. Here is where it comes from, and how it leaks away.
What actually happened?
He calls it vast and unbending, and then says where it comes from: it is produced by an accumulation of right acts, and is not seized by one righteous act from outside. Then the counter-example. A man of Song, impatient at how slowly his rice was coming on, went through the field pulling every shoot up a little, and came home saying he was worn out from helping the rice to grow. His son ran out to look. The whole crop had withered. The breath cannot be hurried.
Accumulated, never acquired
Steadiness comes out of the record of things you have actually got right, one at a time. That is why it cannot be rushed and cannot be borrowed. Confidence somebody else hands you does not survive contact with the first real pressure; the sort you banked yourself does.
The first contract you closed alone, the first outage you carried on your own. Ten talks about composure replace neither of them.
One thing done against yourself and it leaks
Do a thing your own heart cannot approve, he says, and the breath starves. The mechanism is practical rather than mystical: next time you have to hold a line, you know about the exception, and so does everyone who watched you make it.
You waved through one soft number to make a date. The next time you ask the team to hold the standard, the sentence comes out a shade quieter.
Do not pull the shoots
The opposite failure is impatience: pressure, slogans and short-term targets used to force a state of mind into existence. The shoots do look taller. His instruction is to always have the work in hand, never to forget it, and never to help it along.
To get a new hire up to speed you hand him a project well past his reach. It looks like an opportunity and ends as a person somebody else has to repair.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: under pressure you find there is nothing solid underneath you, and you want to fix that quickly.
Ask first: in the last six months, how many things did you carry from beginning to end yourself? That number is the account balance.
Where it goes wrong: substituting encouragement and slogans for real completed work; or accelerating somebody by putting him somewhere far beyond his reach.
Lines to keep
It is produced by accumulated rightness, not seized by one act from outside.
Do a thing your heart cannot approve, and the breath starves.
Keep the work in hand. Do not forget it. Do not help it grow.
Same situation, other people are asking
I'm in this seat and I feel hollow in it.The fight I'm afraid of is inside me.What I actually want is for someone to say "you were right."I need to hold my nerve and there's nothing underneath it.They'll find out I can't do this · all 7 questions →If this one named what you are going through,
send it to someone who needs it, or keep it somewhere you will find it again.