Long ago there was a chess master named Qiu whose chess skills were superlative.
Qiu had two students who studied chess with him, one student studied with concentrated focus and energy. The other, however, wasn’t like that, he thought studying chess was very easy, and there was no need to take it seriously. When the teacher was explaining, although the [the student] sat there, his eyes seemed to be on the chess pieces, he was actually thinking: “If I go to the countryside right now and shoot a goose, I’ll have a lovely dinner.” Because he was always indulging in flights of fancy and absent-mindedness, nothing the teacher said ever sunk in.
As a result, although the two students studied were taught at the same time by the same master, one improved quickly and became a superior chess player, while the other never learned much at all.
Mr. Wang thinks he is clever, but he always does foolish things.
One day he sees a beautiful bell at the top of a door. “Oh! How nice! I will take it home.” He thinks, “What can I do?” After a while he has a “good” idea. “Aha! I have an idea now. I can plug my ears. Then I will not hear the ring when I take off the bell.”
Then he does so. But as soon as he takes off the bell, the owner opens the door. “What ate you doing?” the owner says angrily.
A man was going to the house of some rich person. As he went along the road, he saw a box of good apples at the side of the road. He said, "I do not want to eat those apples; for the rich man will give me much food; he will give me very nice food to eat." Then he took the apples and threw them away into the dust.
He went on and came to a river. The river had become very big; so he could not go over it. He waited for some time; then he said, "I cannot go to the rich man's house today, for I cannot get over the river."
He began to go home. He had eaten no food that day. He began to want food. He came to the apples, and he was glad to take them out of the dust and eat them.
Do not throw good things away; you may be glad to have them at some other time.