What goes around, comes around

In Chapter 36 of TTC, it states:

"The expanded will eventually shrink.
The strong will eventually weaken.
The high and mighty will eventually fall.
The rich will eventually be ruined.
Because this is the way things work,
softness and weakness can overcome hardness and strength."

I was thinking about this about this passage in the context of my own life experiences. I'm sure that we have all seen some individuals who seem to have everything, whose life always goes right, who always gets the good jobs, who seems to get everything handed to them on a plate. And it can be very hard to see this, especially when our own personal circumstances are anything but ideal! I remember one particular girl from school; she was very pretty, clever, a good dancer, the sort of girl who never gets spots, she was popular; she was also selfish, self-centred, arrogant and a bully. When she was 16, she left school to go to a dance academy and everybody thought that she'd do very well and that she'd become famous, because she was the big fish in our little pond. In the end, however, she wasn't quite good enough to be the lead role in anything - the high and mighty will eventually fall.

When we find ourselves envying someone we know for their apparent, neverending, success, we have to remember is what is written in Ch. 36; nothing can expand for ever, nobody will continue to always receive the clean end of the stick, sooner or later everybody takes a fall - although we may not always be around to see it happen.

Tag Taoism envy