When I was in grade school, one of my teachers told us a story about a shepherd who lost his sheep (No, this isn’t the parable of the lost sheep). Here’s a personal retelling:
Once there was shepherd. One day, he wakes up for another day of work, walks to his sheepfold and realizes that one sheep is missing. Upon further inspection, he notices that there’s a hole on the fencing surrounding the sheepfold. It turns out, a wolf had taken one of the sheep through this hole the night before.
His neighbors heard of this news (people were apparently just as nosy back in the day), so they come over to speak with the shepherd. “You should really mend your sheepfold,” they tell him. But the shepherd didn’t care for their advice. “What difference does it make?” he says to his neighbors, “The sheep is gone. Fixing the fence now won’t bring it back to me.”
The next day, the shepherd wakes up, walks to his sheepfold, and he notices that another sheep is missing. That’s two lost sheep over the last two days! (That’s really bad shepherding if you ask me) He’s instantly filled with regret. He should’ve listened to his neighbors. So he spends the day mending the fence and from that day onwards, no sheep was lost under his watch again.
On the surface, it’s a simple story with the usual exposition, conflict, and resolution. I remember hearing this for the first time as a kid and my take away was just as simple: Don’t be lazy. Of course. When your fence is broken, fix it, don’t be lazy. Sounds about right.
Chéng Yǔ
A few weeks ago, I came across the same story while studying Chinese idioms or 成语 (Chéng Yǔ). Similar to English idioms, Chéng Yǔ are phrases (usually four characters in length) that literally mean one thing but actually mean something else, and they’re usually based on some story or history. For instance, the English idiom “break a leg,” as you know, doesn’t actually mean go break a leg but “good luck,” and there’s a history behind this:
The most common theory refers to an actor breaking the “leg line” of the stage. In the early days of theater, this is where ensemble actors were queued to perform. If actors were not performing, they had to stay behind the “leg line,” which also meant they wouldn’t get paid.If you were to tell the actor to “break a leg,” you were wishing them the opportunity to perform and get paid. The sentiment remains the same today; the term means “good luck, give a good performance.”
transcendencetheatre.org
The same is true for Chéng Yǔ. Behind most of them are stories, some based on history, others fictional. To me, Chéng Yǔ are especially fascinating parts of the Chinese language. They have an almost sage-like quality—so much depth and meaning behind only four characters.
One Chéng Yǔ I learned recently is: 亡羊补牢 (Wáng Yáng Bǔ Láo).
亡 (Wáng) – “to lose”
羊 (Yáng) – “sheep”
补 (Bǔ) – “to fix or mend”
牢 (Láo) – “a sheep pen or a sheepfold”
Putting all that together, we get 亡羊补牢, which literally means, “when you lose your sheep, mend the sheepfold.”
Not too late
As I’m reading through the story behind this idiom, I recall that I had learned this same story in school many years ago. “It’s the sheep story!” I think to myself, “I know this one. It’s the one about the lazy shepherd and his lost sheep.” The more I read, the more familiar it feels.
And then I get to the part of the book that explains how the idiom is used in actual conversation. Apparently, it’s usually paired with this other four-character phrase: 犹未为晚 (Yóu Wèi Wèi Wǎn), which just means “it’s not too late.”
So I write these two phrases next to each other on my notebook:
亡羊补牢，犹未为晚。
When you lose your sheep, fix the fence, it’s not too late.
And then it hits me—cue glass shattering sound effects. It’s not too late. Maybe this isn’t about being lazy after all, or at least that isn’t the main point. Maybe it isn’t the shepherd who was lazy but my grade school interpretation of his story that was.
It’s not too late. There’s a time element here and it’s staring right at me. It’s clear now, this wasn’t just about laziness—even the most hardworking person would resort to non-action if he truly believed that there was no hope in righting a wrong. I don’t think our shepherd was lazy, I think he was blind. And what he was unable to see was that although the past is fixed (there’s no saving sheep #1) the future was his to change (all the other sheep were only waiting to be saved). But all he saw was history written in permanent ink.
Cross-Point
There’s this wonderful 1973 talk entitled “Man and Historical Action” by the late philosophy professor Dr. Ramon Reyes or Doc Reyes, as his students called him. In his talk, Doc Reyes describes our relationship, as humans, to our past and future:
“Man, to use the exact word of the author who started it, is a “cross-point” or point of intersection of certain lines of events, lines of events, of course, on various levels, in other words […] a point of intersection of physical lines of events, interpersonal lines of events, social lines of events, historical lines of events.”
Just as the shepherd in our story woke up with one sheep already missing, we were born with certain things already decided for us. We are products of nature, genetics, culture, social interactions, and history. We don’t get to choose. Doc Reyes continues:
“We come to realize that as a person, as cross-points, we would be other than what we are if history had been different. But the point is: we are what we are. We have to start from a certain set of data, literally, data, given, something we have to accept just as physical set of data, interpersonal set of data, social set of data. As historical products we have to start from from a certain set of data given. We cannot deny the facts of our past.”
Could I have chosen to be anyone other than a non-six-foot-tall Chinese male born in the Philippines? No chance. These are the data I was born with. For instance, I’m cautious about eating sugar because diabetes runs in our blood. I light incense to talk to the dead because over 100 years ago, my grandparents were born in the southern region of China. I was baptized a Roman Catholic because in 1565, Miguel López de Legazpi and the rest of his Spanish expedition arrived the Philippine shores.
Apart from the things we cannot control, we are also who we are now because of the choices we made ourselves, even those from just a day ago. The more I repeat this to myself, the more aware I am of its obvious-ness, but I think it still bears stressing. We lose sheep everyday, sh*t happens everyday. We take wrong turns, make poor choices, we procrastinate. I can’t count the number of times I’ve woken up with a sore throat because I snacked too much the night before and didn’t drink enough water before going to bed.
The Other Half
We’re always at the mercy of our past. Sounds a bit bleak. But if we go back to the idiom, we see that this is only one half of the equation—the 亡羊 (Wáng Yáng) side. The other half—补牢 (Bǔ Láo)—comes immediately after. Fix the fence. Doc Reyes puts it nicely:
“Insofar as a man is a point of intersection of all these various kinds of events in all these various levels, you and I can be characterized in one sense by what we might call destiny or fate; on the other hand you and I are also characterized by a certain creativity and, therefore, a certain task or responsibility. […] Seen as destiny, I am a set of limitations. On the other hand, seen as a task, I am a set of possibilities.”
I really like that bit about “fate” and “destiny.” The point where they end is where creativity and responsibility begin. Right in between, where both halves meet, is the question: How do we move forward from here? It’s not always easy to face this question, because we won’t always like the answer. After we lose our sheep, do we go looking for it? Do we fix the fence? Do we ignore our neighbors’ advice?
I look back at my little grade school self, the one who heard this story for the first time. I think of all the things that will go right for that kid, and then I remember all that will go terribly wrong. I long to speak to him, maybe even give him a heads up. But even if that were possible, I wouldn’t want to take away from the suspense of the experience. I’m excited for him.
I’ve always believed that the value of revisiting the past lies in its ability to show us a possible future. It’s a great reference point for growth, learning, and the occasional nostalgia. I look back and I’m curious about what these memories are telling me about what’s up ahead.
It’s a lot to process. It’s also a lot to learn from. But one big lesson is clearer and more nuanced now than simply “don’t be lazy”: When the ripple effects of our past—both distant and recent—come back to bite us, our response depends largely on our ability, at that moment, to perceive time as only moving forward and only moving at a pace that it’s always moved at, even when time feels like it’s moving too fast on the good days and too slow on the bad ones.
We are our limitations but we are also our possibilities. We are all the sheep we’ve ever lost, but we are also the fence yet to be fixed.
“What difference does it make?” asks our shepherd. It depends on where we’re looking. There are no undo buttons in real life, no matter how hard we look (Trust me, I’ve tried). By definition, everything is too late from the standpoint of the past. But as of right now, we’re early for the future and lucky for us, we’re on time for the present. It’s not too late. 亡羊补牢.