When I was a child, we settled in a new home, and my father went to buy chairs, beds, cabinets and other furnishings. At the market we looked this way and that, felt the beds and asked their prices. It was late in Shizong's reign, before wages had risen, and buying the new home had emptied our pockets. The fine pieces kept us away with their prestigious names and high prices; the cheap ones all had flaws that made them hard to choose. My father sighed: 'What I like I cannot afford; what I can afford I do not like.'

Looking back now, we seem ready to discard whatever is easy to obtain, while what we desire appears unattainable. Some pursue what is within reach and find the way smooth; others pursue what they desire and meet resistance. Some take comfort in considering what they can do; others grieve by measuring themselves against what they want.

Yet when we gaze upward and hesitantly step back, it is not inability but lack of courage that stops us. We turn away from lesser things with a sneer, as though we dislike them, though we still wish to advance. We live but one human life, nothing more. When others say we cannot and we stop, we may gain a day's ease, only to regret it for a lifetime. Even when told we lack the ability, we can keep striving: it may seem impossible, yet we carry on. Thus I say: those who advance despite apparent inability may ultimately retreat, but retreat with greater honor. They can comfort themselves: 'I tried, and now I have no regrets.'

Written to console my friend Chen, on the yimao day of the tenth month in the 67th year of the Republic.