Meng Haoran Searching for Plum Blossoms

Meng Haoran was an eighth-century Tang Dynasty poet who chose a different path than most ambitious scholars of his time. While his contemporaries fought tooth and nail for government positions through the imperial examination system, Meng preferred wandering mountains and writing poetry about nature. He lived as a hermit in the Lumen Mountains, content with simple pleasures like watching plum blossoms bloom in winter.

The story behind this stick captures him on one of his famous flower-hunting expeditions, riding his donkey through the hills with a young servant, wine cup in hand, celebrating the first signs of spring. His approach to life was unhurried and authentic. He became famous not through political maneuvering but by staying true to his artistic vision.

Though he never achieved high office, his poems outlasted the careers of countless bureaucrats.

Meng Haoran rides out before the rest of the city is awake, donkey ambling, page-boy ahead, wine cup in hand, looking for plum blossoms that have only just opened. He is not chasing a promotion. He is chasing a flower. That image is what this stick holds up to you, and the fact that you drew it about your career means some part of you already suspects you are running on someone else's calendar.

The verse is rated Average, not auspicious, not unlucky, and that rating is the point. Nothing dramatic is breaking in your professional life. There is no rescue coming and no collapse looming. What the stick reflects back is a quieter discomfort: the meetings you sit through wondering why the pace feels wrong, the LinkedIn scroll where everyone else seems three steps ahead, the small voice that asks whether the title you are chasing is actually yours or inherited from a parent, a cohort, an algorithm. Meng never sat the exam his peers killed themselves over, and his poems outlived their careers. The stick is not telling you to quit. It is asking you to notice which blossoms you actually rode out to see, and which ones you are pretending to want because the queue is moving that way.

Spend one evening this week writing down what a good working year would actually look like for you, in your own words, before comparing it to anyone's resume. Then look at your current role and mark which parts match and which parts you are tolerating for someone else's approval. Have one honest conversation with a manager or mentor about pace, not promotion.

Skip one networking event you were attending out of guilt. The plum blooms when it blooms; your job is to be the one who shows up early enough to see it.