Cultivation

Thick Face, Black Heart continues to delight me. The recommendation came through an unlikely source, but it's really good.

Here's another quote:

"We are all programmed to judge success and winning in relation to how fast we can produce visible results. Seldom are people generous enough to give us time to cultivate ourselves, even though that cultivation would bring greater fruit. Like the Pung bird, we have to endure criticism from the lesser birds for our apparent failure and foolishness. Chuang Tzu, more than two thousand years ago, saw the difficulties that an extraordinary man with an extraordinary vision would encounter in the world in which we live."

Sometimes, cultivation—getting a solid ground to build on—pays off.