Tao Yuanming
Eighty Days as Magistrate
What he resigned was that day, not the office
Book of Song, Biographies of Recluses; Tao Yuanming, The Return, 405
Whether to turn now or wait for a better moment. Why Tao Yuanming left after eighty days instead of finishing the term.
What actually happened?
In 405 he took the post of magistrate at Pengze and held it for a little over eighty days. An inspector came down from the commandery; his staff told him to dress properly and go out to receive the man. He said the line that has lasted: I cannot bend my back for five pecks of rice to a petty official of the district. He unfastened the seal that same day. Before leaving he wrote The Return, which turns on distance rather than resolve: I strayed, but not far. He never took office again.
I strayed, but not far
What the poem presses is not determination but distance. The road was wrong and he has not gone far enough to be unable to return. The price of turning rises with time; eighty days back is not the same price as eight years back. Waiting for the right moment usually buys a worse one.
Turning the moment you notice is cheapest. Turning after a full term means you already owe the term.
What breaks it is something small
He did not leave over a great matter of principle. He left over having to dress up and go out to greet an inspector. The thing that decides people is usually of this size: unimportant in itself, and it puts what am I doing here in front of your face.
What makes you want to go is rarely the big thing. It is the small day that suddenly shows you the whole shape.
Today is right and yesterday was wrong
He offers no case for the years he spent in office. He says outright that yesterday was wrong. Admitting the old stretch was a mistake is what makes the turn clean; insisting it was defensible drags the old logic along and nothing actually moves.
Do not rush to justify the past when you turn. Say first that it was not what you wanted.
How do I use it today?
Where you are: things are going acceptably, you know this is not it, and you keep telling yourself to wait for a better moment.
Ask first: how far from far am I? What does the small thing that makes me want to go actually show? Can I call the old stretch simply wrong?
Where it goes wrong: reading it as walk out whenever something annoys you. He resigned a career, not an incident, and he had served and tested it several times before. And he was poor for the rest of his life; the price was real and he paid it.
Lines to keep
The price of turning rises with time. Eighty days is cheaper.
Do not justify the past. Say it was not what you wanted.
Same situation, other people are asking
Is switching tracks now too big a risk?Everyone's chasing the new thing. Do we have to?Two years in and I think it's the wrong thing.I know this is not it. Can I not just finish the year first?Do I change direction now · all 5 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.