Action should be taken before a thing has made its appearance;How often does it happen that a problem seems to blow up in our face? This tends to happen when we aren't paying close attention to what we're doing. Part of our attention is on the task at hand and the other part is fidgeting with our cell phone, watching the TV, listening/texting on our IPad or simply daydreaming.
~ James Legge translation, from The Sacred Books of the East, 1891 ~
Deal with it before it happens.
~ Gia-fu Feng and Jane English translation, published by Vintage Books, 1989 ~
Act on it when it has not yet begun
~ Derek Lin translation, from Tao Te Ching: Annotated & Explained, published by SkyLight Paths, 2006 ~
Deal with the situation before it becomes a problem.
~ Ron Hogan rendition, from Beatrice.com, 2004 ~
If we had been paying close attention, we might have noticed an impending circumstance or something slightly out of kilter. We could have easily dealt with it, but, since we didn't, now it blows up in our face.
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