Dong Yong Buries His Father
Inauspicious
The poem
Original: 临风冒雨去还乡 / 正是其身似燕儿 / 卸得泥来欲作垒 / 到头垒坏复须泥
The story
Dong Yong of the Han dynasty lost his mother young and supported his father alone. When his father died he had no money for the burial, so he borrowed ten thousand coins, and when he could not repay them he sold himself into servitude, hauling firewood and water and hoeing fields from dawn to dusk. His devotion was genuine; the harvest of his labour went to someone else.
What it means
The image is a swallow carrying mud. It flies through storms to build its nest one beakful at a time; the nest falls, the mud returns to mud, and a season of effort ends where it began. The lot is not accusing you of laziness. It is pointing at the structure of what you are doing: this task cannot hold the results you put into it. Rather than devising more schemes and working longer hours, stop and ask who is actually collecting the harvest. If you are labouring for another's benefit, redirect early.
By area of life
Wealth
Gains and losses cancel out and the net result is zero. Never borrow to invest here; the profit only services the debt. Work with your own money and modestly.
Love
Effort produces no flowering. Pursuit and reconciliation both tend to come to nothing. Rather than holding a bond that will not hold, steady your own life first.
Work
Work is hard to find and business yields no surplus. Do not double down; change to something that keeps what you put in, or retrain before trying again.
Health
Running from doctor to doctor brings no improvement. Treat the root rather than the symptom, and if you made a vow, fulfil it.
Travel
Distant journeys end with nothing gained. What you can do where you already are will cost far less and actually accumulate.
Advice
Stop the pointless running and work out exactly whose pocket all this effort is filling.