Mozi
I Thought You Could Bear It
The one he scolds hardest is often the one he thinks can carry the most
Mozi, Gengzhu (chapter 46)
The teacher scolds you and no one else, and you wonder if he thinks less of you. What did Mozi say when his pupil asked exactly that?
What actually happened?
Gengzhu was one of Mozi's pupils. Once Mozi lost his temper and scolded him hard. Gengzhu protested: surely I am no worse than the others? Mozi did not answer directly. He asked: if I were going to climb the Taihang mountains, and had a fine horse and a sheep to harness, which would you drive? The horse, said Gengzhu. Why? Because the horse can bear it. Mozi said: and I thought you could bear it too.
The scolded man asks about rank
Gengzhu's first words were not 'what did I get wrong' but 'am I not as good as the others'. Once criticism turns into a question of ranking it feels like humiliation, and the energy to put the fault right is the first thing to go.
The director names you in the meeting and you think 'why me', not what exactly he pointed at.
Hard on you because the load is heavy
Mozi used a cart. Climbing a mountain, you whip only the horse that can pull it; a sheep cannot, so you do not bother. The harsher scolding was not a lower opinion but a measure of who could take the whole load up the hill.
The person whose draft is cut hardest is often the one the editor means to put on stage.
Say it to his face
Mozi told Gengzhu directly. Without that, the scolded man can only guess. Once it is said, a rebuke becomes a trust.
After a hard review, add 'I'm giving you this because you can take it'. It does more than ten consolations.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: someone above you keeps picking on you alone, and you start to doubt that he rates you.
Ask first: is he scolding what I did, or comparing me with others? Is the heaviest work also coming to me?
Where it goes wrong: reading every scolding as respect. This holds because Mozi said it to his face. If a person gives you no weight and no explanation and just keeps pressing, that is not the horse's treatment, and you owe him no excuses.
Lines to keep
Climbing the mountain, horse or sheep: which do I drive?
The horse can bear it.
And I thought you could bear it too.
Same situation, other people are asking
When people near me do well, something in me goes cold.Is he better than me, or just three years earlier?He's a step ahead of me on everything.Am I doing the work, or proving something?Someone is ahead of me · all 15 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.