Not long ago, I was working on an internet marketing project. I kept myself occupied with market and keywords research, competition analysis, learning about search engine optimization, mapping out sales funnel, building a website and studying how to drive traffic to my website. After a couple of months, I was getting exhausted and felt that I was going nowhere. I got impatient and tried to take short cuts because what I have done is labour intensive, too slow and tedious.
After many months, I realized that the reasons why I did not meet my goals was because I was impatient and wanted quick result.
I was reminded of the chinese idiom “pulling up seedlings to help them grow” originated from “Gong Sun Chou Shang”, an article by Meng Zi (also known as Mencius) who was one of the great philosophers in Chinese history.
Meng Zi told of an impatient farmer who once lived in the Song state during the Warring States period (475-221B.C)
The farmer wanted his seedings to grow fast. For an entire week, he watched the seedlings expectantly. He became very disappointed when he saw there was little difference day after day. The farmer was puzzled by the slow progress and tried to find ways to get quicker results.
One day, he came up with the idea to pull the seedlings up a little to help them grow. He was very excited about this plan and ran out to the field early the next morning.
The farmer pulled the seedlings out of the ground, one by one. He worked very diligently and was quite happy when he saw that, with his help, they were indeed taller.
At nightfall, when he arrived home, he said to his wife and son: “I am exhausted today, but it was worth it! I helped all the seedlings grow taller today.”
Hearing this, his son immediately ran to the field to see for himself. All the seedlings had withered and died.
Meng Zi used this story to illustrate the cultivation of a noble spirit as a long term, step by step process, which cannot be achieved by conscious and transient efforts.
The idiom “pulling up seedlings to help them grow” is now used to refer to someone who is impatient for success and destroys the very conditions upon which success depends.
My personal experience has taught me an important lesson and like the farmer, I was reminded that anything of value requires hard work, patience and dedicated effort.
No matter how difficult and tedious it may be, to achieve your goals, one must cultivate the virtues of patience and the discipline to do whatever it takes to follow through until long-term success is achieved.
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