64. Care at the Beginning

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Original Chinese text

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What is settled is easy to maintain; what has not yet shown signs is easy to plan for.

Good management begins early. While conditions are stable and trouble has not taken shape, action costs less and leaves more room to respond.

Original Chinese text

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What is fragile is easy to break apart; what is minute is easy to disperse.

A problem is easiest to address before it hardens or spreads. Noticing small changes in time is more effective than forceful repair afterward.

Original Chinese text

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Act on it before it comes into being; put it in order before disorder arises.

The emphasis is prevention rather than belated repair. Seeing a trend and responding before its consequences emerge is usually the steadier course.

Original Chinese text

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A tree broad enough to fill two arms grows from the tiniest shoot; a nine-story terrace rises from basketfuls of earth; a journey of a thousand li begins beneath one's feet.

Every substantial result has a small, concrete beginning. Respecting accumulation and taking the present step matter more than merely staring at the destination.

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Those who force things ruin them; those who cling to things lose them.

The target is coercion and possessiveness that ignore how things are unfolding. Too much control and too tight a grip can destroy the balance one hoped to preserve.

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Therefore the sage does not force action and so does not ruin things; does not cling and so suffers no loss.

Non-forcing is not inactivity, but action without imposing private will. Non-clinging means not treating results as possessions, reducing failure born of excessive control.

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In pursuing their affairs, people often ruin them just as they are nearing completion.

Near the end, people may relax, rush, or apply needless force. The final stage still calls for the same clarity and patience as the beginning.

Original Chinese text

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Be as careful at the end as at the beginning, and no undertaking will be ruined. Therefore the sage desires freedom from craving and does not prize goods that are hard to obtain; learns to unlearn and returns to where ordinary people go astray, helping all things follow their own course without daring to force them.

Steady care depends on restraining desire and loosening acquired assumptions. The sage does not arrange everything for others, but removes interference so that each thing can develop according to its own conditions.

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