Standing in the snow

Yang Shi and You Zuo went to study with Cheng Yi, one of the great teachers of their time. They arrived at his door in heavy snow and were told that the master was resting.

They waited outside.

Cheng Yi woke, saw the two figures standing in the yard, and the snow on the ground had reached a foot deep.

The phrase "standing in the snow outside Cheng's door" became a fixed image of respect for learning.

I want to be careful with this one, because the easy reading is that devotion should be abject. That's not it. The story is usually told with the emphasis on the snow. The deeper detail is that they'd already decided this teacher was worth waiting for.

There's a version of this you should distrust: waiting outside anybody's door because they're famous. That's not respect, it's auditioning.

The useful version is different. Once you've decided a person has something you need, treat the cost of learning from them as part of the price, and stop complaining about the wait. Not because they're superior. Because you decided.

That's also how you should treat your own study. If you've concluded a thing is worth it, the boring waiting is not an unfairness done to you.

MOJOWAY asks clients not what they want to learn but whether they've priced the waiting.