4. A Foolish Man - Preface

Long ago, an older man lived in a village in the deep mountains of China. Two big Mountains surrounded the village, blocking his family and the villagers’ access to the outside world and causing great inconvenience.
One day, the old man’s grandson, an eight-year-old boy, asked: “Grandpa, what does the Ocean look like!?”
“My grandpa told me that the Ocean is blue.” the old man said.
“So, is it like the blue sky?” the boy asked.
“No, my grandpa told me that the ocean has lots of water.” the old man said.
“Is it like a stream?” the boy asked again.
“No, my grandpa said the ocean is spacious,” the old man answered.
“How spacious is it? Is it as spacious as the lake beside our village?” the boy asked.
“I don’t know, I have never seen the ocean,” the old man said.
“Why haven’t you gone to see it?”
“Because the mountains are too high and too big, they blocked us.”
“Why can’t we remove the mountains?”
The older man’s jaw dropped. He was speechless.
When he saw the little boy’s eyes become disappointed, it hurt his heart. 
The next day, the older man called his whole family together for a meeting. 
“We have lived in this deep mountain for generations, and we all complain that the two mountains in front block us from connecting with the outside world. Why don’t we remove them?” the old man said.
“Are you crazy? How old are you!? You are too old; how many years will you have?” his wife questioned, shocked by his madness. 
“It’s never too late to start! What’s late? It is you never dared to start!” the old man said.
“Where do we put the earth and stone we dig up?” his oldest son asked.
“Throw them into the mountains’ hollow, we fill those hollows, we will live on a plain in the future,” his youngest son said.
“You are a foolish man.” his wife said helplessly. “But I would help to cook food for you.”
Since that day, the older man has led his family to dig and move the mountains.
“You are very foolish. Those mountains are so huge, it will be impossible to remove them,” a wise old man from the village told him. 
“Yes, I am old, and I will soon be dead, but I have children, and when they die, their children will carry on; there is no end. The mountain will get smaller and smaller. We will move the mountains one day.” the foolish man responded.
Day after day, Year after Year, the family dug through summer and winter. Their persistence moved the villagers, who joined them and gathered to dig the mountains; they dug and dug Year after Year, never stopping from spring to winter.
When the mountain god saw what they were doing, he was afraid that if they kept digging, his mountains would disappear, so he ran to report to the Heavenly Emperor.  
“I have never seen any human with such a spirit of perseverance despite difficulties.” the Heavenly Emperor said, and be moved. 
“God! If they keep moving my mountains, what can I do?” the mountain god asked.
“Such people deserve our respect and help!” the Heavenly Emperor thought for a while and said, “Why don’t you move your mountain a little to make it easier for them to come in and out?”
The mountain god had to carry the two mountains away. 
Since then, the high mountains have not hampered the older man’s family or villagers.
They and their descendants finally left the mountains, saw the ocean, and even crossed it to meet people who lived on the other side of the earth.
“This is a fable from ancient China,” I told Sandy.
The day was May 2020; Sandy and I worked in our garden. Even though the season was still spring, the sun began showing power.
We were working to dig up the dead grass and move it, including the soil underneath. Because we thought the soil was killing our lawn, we removed it and added new soil.

We were tired and hot. Every time, the digger and shovel are as heavy as a thousand. 
It was a hard job. Too hard! It seemed like an impossible task for me and Sandy. 
So, I recalled the fable about the foolish older man who moved the mountains. I shared the story with Sandy to encourage us to keep working.
We shoveled and shoveled, dug and dug. We were dead tired. 
Finally, we removed all of the dead grass.
We didn’t have God’s help but did what we wanted to do because of our persistence.
We were proud of ourselves when we lay tired in bed at night!
The following day, we had breakfast.
“Why didn’t the old man and his family or the villagers think of building a road leading to outside? That was easier than removing the mountains.” Sandy asked me suddenly.
“Our ancient story is not like that.” It took a long time to get my mind back from breakfast to yesterday’s story. I said, “The story teaches us that if we have a spirit of perseverance despite difficulties, we can do anything.”
But I looked at Sandy’s face; I knew I hadn’t convinced him.
Unfortunately, a week later, my gardener told us we had done wrong. We shouldn’t have taken the soil away because the dead lawn wasn’t the soil’s problem. He had to buy soil and put it back.
How foolish we are! Why we didn’t ask a garden expert?
We had a good lesson. 
The foolish older man’s target was expediently from the deep mountains. Still, there were better ideas than digging into the enormous mountains. 
And Sandy and I had the wrong goal; we wasted time, energy, and money.
1. Choose the right target; 2. Choose the correct method; 3. Persistence and hard work are exemplary.