| The first excerpt represents the past or something you must release, and is drawn from Tao Teh King by Lao-tze: That which is meddling, touching everything,
Will work but ill, and disappointment bring.
Misery!--happiness is to be found by its side! Happiness!--misery
lurks beneath it! Who knows what either will come to in the end?
2. Shall we then dispense with correction? The (method of) correction
shall by a turn become distortion, and the good in it shall by a turn
become evil. The delusion of the people (on this point) has indeed
subsisted for a long time.
3. Therefore the sage is (like) a square which cuts no one (with its
angles); (like) a corner which injures no one (with its sharpness).
He is straightforward, but allows himself no license; he is bright,
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The second excerpt represents the present or the deciding factor of the moment, and is drawn from Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson:
 Treasure Island |
The third excerpt represents the future or something you must embrace, and is drawn from Sons and Lovers by D. H. Lawrence: On the Good Friday he organised a walk to the Hemlock Stone.
There were three lads of his own age, then Annie and Arthur,
Miriam and Geoffrey. Arthur, apprenticed as an electrician
in Nottingham, was home for the holiday. Morel, as usual, was up early,
whistling and sawing in the yard. At seven o'clock the family heard
him buy threepennyworth of hot-cross buns; he talked with gusto
to the little girl who brought them, calling her "my darling". He
turned away several boys who came with more buns, telling them
they had been "kested" by a little lass. Then Mrs. Morel got up,
and the family straggled down. It was an immense luxury to everybody,
this lying in bed just beyond the ordinary time on a weekday.
 Sons and Lovers |