Waiting by the Stump

This story comes from ancient Chinese philosophy, specifically from Mencius and Han Feizi around 300 BCE. A farmer working his fields witnessed a rabbit accidentally run into a tree stump and die. Instead of continuing his daily work, he abandoned his crops and sat by that same stump every day, waiting for another rabbit to meet the same fate.

Of course, no other rabbits came. His fields withered, his harvest failed, and he became the laughingstock of his village. The tale became a cautionary parable about passive thinking and false expectations.

In Chinese culture, it represents the foolishness of waiting for lightning to strike twice instead of creating your own opportunities through consistent effort.

Stick 72 hands you the farmer at the stump. He saw something extraordinary happen once — a hare running headlong into wood — and built the rest of his life around the hope it would happen again. The fields behind him kept needing water, the seasons kept turning, but his eyes stayed fixed on that one patch of bark. The verse calls him stubborn, but stubbornness here looks a lot like comfort. Sitting still felt safer than admitting the lucky moment was a one-off.

Drawn for a general life question, this stick reflects a place where you've quietly stopped working the field. There was a windfall once, maybe a job that fell into your lap, a relationship that arrived without effort, a piece of advice that paid off. Some part of you is still waiting at that same stump, treating the fluke as a strategy. The grade is average because nothing has gone wrong yet, but the verse is honest: the longer you sit, the more the real ground around you dries out. The stick isn't scolding you. It's asking what you've been calling patience that might actually be avoidance.

Name the stump out loud: the one outcome you keep hoping repeats itself without your input. Write down what you actually did the first time it worked, and notice how little of that effort is happening now. Pick one neglected field this week — a skill grown rusty, a contact gone cold, a habit dropped — and put thirty minutes of real work into it before checking on the stump again.

Tell one trusted person what you're waiting for, so the waiting stops being invisible. Lightning rarely answers a summons; ploughing usually does.