The wooden rooster

A king wanted a fighting rooster and gave the job to a trainer named Ji Shengzi.

After ten days the king asked if it was ready. Not yet, said the trainer. It's still vain and full of its own spirit.

Ten days later. Not yet. It still flares up when it hears a sound.

Another ten days. Not yet. It still stares, and its energy is high.

Ten days more. The trainer said: it's close. It doesn't react to another rooster crowing anymore. Look at it, it looks like a wooden rooster. Its virtue is complete. Others will look at it and turn away.

Zhuangzi finishes: no rooster dared to face it.

We teach people the opposite. Show your teeth, take up space, answer fast, win the exchange. And then you meet someone who doesn't flinch and doesn't perform, and they absorb the whole room.

The wooden rooster isn't numb. It stopped needing the fight.

If your week was full of provocation and you answered every one, that's the practice. Not becoming harder. Becoming quieter in the places where it costs you.

MOJOWAY starts with what a pattern costs you, not what's wrong with you. That reframing is the first honest step toward growing out of it.