The Tree That Survived Because It Was Useless

<p>Every account has at least one position you hate the most. You bought it a long time ago, and it neither goes up nor down, and every time you look at it you think, "Why did I buy that?" I despised one of those positions for a long time, and eventually I sold it at a loss. And only after selling did I realize. The reason I hated it wasn't because the position was bad, <strong>it was because the only thing I wanted from that position was exactly one thing</strong>.</p>

<h2>The Man Who Smashed the Gourd and the Man Who Set It Adrift on the River</h2>

<p>Something similar happened about two thousand years ago. In the <em>Zhuangzi</em>, there is a figure named Huzi. He received a seed from a king, planted it, and it grew into a massive gourd that could hold five <em>shi</em>. When he tried to fill it with water, it was too heavy to lift, and when he tried to split it to use as a ladle, it was too wide to dip anything. So he did this.</p>

<blockquote>

<p>I smashed it because it was useless.</p>

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<p><strong>It wasn't that it had no use; it was that the only uses he knew were a water container and a ladle.</strong> That is why the passage where Zhuangzi questions him has endured for so long. Why didn't you think to hollow out the great gourd whole, set it adrift on the river, and lie on top of it? For a person looking for something to hold water, the gourd is a failure; for a person looking for something to float on water, the very same gourd becomes a boat. The object remains the same, but its value changes.</p>

<p>In the same story, there is a unguent that no one applies. A family in the Song dynasty had made this unguent for generations and made a living by fluffing cotton. When a passing traveler offered to buy the recipe for a hundred gold pieces, the whole family gathered and decided to sell it. The traveler persuaded the king to use the unguent in a winter water fight, won, and received land as a reward. The unguent was exactly the same. Only the way it was used was different.</p>

<figure>

<img src="/ust-original/ust-original-omiju-20260823-1-tk7r4d.jpg" alt="A large hollowed-out tree trunk floating in the middle of a river with no one riding it" />

<figcaption><em>A large hollowed-out tree trunk floating in the middle of a river with no one riding it</em></figcaption>

</figure>

<h2>The Tree a Carpenter Wouldn't Look At Is Still Standing</h2>

<p>Huzi does not back down and brings up a second tree story. It is a large tree standing by the road, but its trunk is so gnarled that a marking line cannot align with it, and its branches are so crooked that a ruler cannot match them. So carpenters passing by do not even glance at it.</p>

<p>The words of another carpenter in a different passage are even more cutting. If you make a boat from it, it sinks; if you make a coffin from it, it soon rots; if you make a vessel from it, it shatters; if you use it as a pillar, worms eat it. Then he adds one line. Because it had no use, it was able to live this long.</p>

<p><strong>A useful tree has long since been cut down and become a pillar somewhere, and only a useless tree is still standing as a tree.</strong> Here, the important thing is that the person holding the ruler is the carpenter. A carpenter's ruler measures only whether a piece of wood is pillar material or not. When we look at our accounts, we also hold just one ruler. It is the ruler that asks what percent return we have right now. Measured by that ruler, every position that hasn't gone up is a crooked tree.</p>

<figure>

<img src="/ust-original/ust-original-omiju-20260823-2-tk7r4d.jpg" alt="A distant silhouette of an old tree standing alone in the middle of a snow-covered field, its branches crooked at random angles" />

<figcaption><em>A distant silhouette of an old tree standing alone in the middle of a snow-covered field, its branches crooked at random angles</em></figcaption>

</figure>

<h2>So Why Did I Buy This Position in the First Place</h2>

<p>When you are just starting out with US stocks, people rarely say that each position plays a different role. But in reality, they do. Some positions are bought to surge higher, some are bought to fall less when the market collapses, and some are bought so that the dividend arrives faithfully every quarter. If you measure that third kind of position with that first ruler, it will always look like a failure.</p>

<p>The position I sold at a loss was the same. I believed I had bought it to go up, but in fact, when all my other positions rose, it was the one that didn't shake on its own and let me sleep at night. Only after I smashed it did I realize that gourd had been a boat. Open the position you hate the most in your account right now and ask it one question. <strong>Why did I buy this position in the first place.</strong> If an answer comes, that answer is the ruler. If no answer comes, selling is the right move.</p>

<p>The words Zhuangzi left for Huzi were not about pitying the gourd. They were about the heart being blocked like a cattail stalk, able to see only one kind of use. In an account, what that means is this. Before you erase a position, look at the ruler you are holding first. If you change that ruler and measure again, some positions will still belong in the cleanup pile, and some positions will turn out to belong exactly where they have been from the start. What remains is not the return; it is the list. A list with one line written down for each item, recording what you hold and why.</p>

<p><em>Written by the Omijo Editorial Team | UST Original on Investing and Life</em></p>