Dear Richard,
Tai Xing (¤Ó¦æ) and Wang Wu (¤ý«Î) are two big mountains, seven hundred square miles in area, ten thousand feet in height, originally located south of Ji Zhou (¾¬¦{) and north of He Yang (ªe¶§). North side of the mountains, there lived a ninety years old man. He was not happy with the mountains blocking his way. He planned to remove them and dump the stones and rocks to the ocean. The project would benefit the traffic in the area, and gained quite a few people's support.
A local wise man laughed at him, 'You are so foolish. With your aging body, you couldn't even hurt the two mountains a fair bit. How could you finish it?' The foolish old man said, 'Don't be that narrow-minded. Yes, I will probably die before the project completes, but my sons will succeed. My sons have my grandsons. Grandsons have their sons. Generations after generations, life continues forever. On the contrary, the mountains can't grow. Why don't we do it?' The wise man stuck with no words.
Snakes in the mountains were frightened. They complained to the Heaven. God was touched by the old man's spirit, and sent two angels to help. One took a mountain further east and another further south. Since then, the area was cleared.
Richard, I remember a famous teacher's saying, which helps to conclude the above story. One day, a student asked the teacher, 'What jobs on earth are easy? And what are difficult?' The teacher replied, 'If you are willing to do, the most difficult job would become easy; otherwise, even the easiest would be difficult.'
With love, Dad