Sunday, November 11, 2012

A journey of a thousand miles...

Its a famous translation of a Chinese saying, attributed to Lao Tzu - but it wasn't until I googled it (because I had a whole nother post in mind not five minutes ago) that I found there was disagreement on what it should actually be translated as.

Should it be "begins with a single step", thereby inspiring us to put that first foot out and just start?

Another line of thought is that it should be "begins beneath your feet", meaning first you start with stillness and grounding.

And then there are those who apparently feel it should be "thousand miles to be travelled, start with foot (placed) down" - because we all know that the Chinese need firm instructions...

And really, when you consider that it probably wasn't miles to be travelled but another unit and it may not have been one thousand but instead a less rounded figure, all we have to contemplate is the journey and the beginning...

So I will consider this one foot being planted.

1 comments:

Debby said...

As long as you haven't planted your foot in someone's arse...