Accelerated Growth: Stretching Your Crops

The inordinate desire in the west to increase productivity, to go faster and faster, especially in business, can actually become counterproductive. In this short story from the Chinese philosopher Mencius we find a helpful reminder that our attempts to speed things up doesn’t always work:

You don’t want to be like the man from Sung. There was a man from Sung who was worried about the slow growth of his crops and so he went and yanked on them to accelerate their growth. Empty-headed, he returned home and announced to his people: “I am so tired today. I have been out stretching the crops.” His son ran out to look, but the crops had already withered.