Why You Need More 'De' (德) in Your Life | Lost Meanings

Live in Beijing for a week and you'll hear someone mutter it. At the guy who cuts the line, at the driver who parks across two spaces. 缺德, short on 德, not rude, not nasty, short, like your account at the end of the month. Once I noticed that, I couldn't stop wondering, short on what exactly? Where does it go and how do you put it back? The people who coined that insult had an answer to all three, and it changes what you should do the next time somebody wrongs you. Hey everyone, it's Jared Madsen here. This is the first episode of a new series I'm calling Lost Meanings. Every episode, I take one word everybody thinks they understand, and we go back to the books it came from. And today's word is printed on millions of bookshelves, including mine. This is the Daodejing. You probably know it as the Tao Te Ching. It's one of the most translated books in history. The title is three characters, 道, the way, 经, a classic, and in the middle, 德, and in a lot of English copies, 德 is translated as virtue. So what does virtue mean to you? Be honest. For most of us, it's a report card. Being good, being polite, something a Victorian aunt would tell you about your posture. And the only place most people hear the word anymore is virtue signaling, which means showing everybody how good you are. Hold on to that one, it gets funnier in a few minutes. The English word comes from Latin, virtus, from vir, which means man. It started out as a soldier's courage, and over the centuries, it turned into moral excellence. A grade, but not every translator or bought it. In 1934, a British scholar named Arthur Waley translated this book, and he refused to use the word virtue. He called this translation the way and its power. Power, not goodness, something you have. So which is it? A grade or a power? The Chinese language has a very clear answer, and it's hiding in that insult. This is de. This piece on the left, chi, means walking. On the right, on top, it is an old form of 直, straight, and underneath, 心, the heart, a straight heart walking. About 1900 years ago, the first real Chinese dictionary, the 说文解字 defined it like this, 外德于人,内德于己也, what you gain from other people on the outside and what you gain from yourself on the inside. Gain, not grade. And here's my favorite part. The Li Ji, the book of rites, has a line that's basically a pun. 德者，德也。 virtue, is, de, to gain. Same sound, same tone, different character. That's a 2,000-year-old play on words. And honestly, it's this whole video. Once you know that, you'll start hearing it everywhere in Chinese. 积德, to pile up 德, it's what grandmothers say. Be good, pile some up. 缺德, short on 德, that's our insult. It doesn't mean you're rude, it just means your balance is low. It sounds less like an insult than an overdraft notice. 隐德, hidden 德, the good you do where nobody sees it. Hold on to that one, because it's where we'll end. And if you watched my story about the doctor who put his arm inside a tiger's mouth, you've already met a man who lived by it. Now back to this book, chapter 54. Cultivate it in yourself, and your de is real. Cultivate it in your family, and your de is left over. Left over. And a line earlier, the same chapter says the descendants keep up the offerings without end. Another classic uses the exact same word, the I Ching, the Book of Changes. 积善之家，必有余庆 A family that piles up good will have blessings left over. And then the half-nobody quotes. Ji Bu Shan Zhi Jia Bi You Yu Yang A family that piles up the opposite will have disaster left over. yu, leftover, both times. So it's not a grade, it works more like a currency. You earn it, you can spend it, you can run short, and what's ever left goes to your kids. So how do you earn it? The old answer is surprisingly specific. Kindness, obviously, but also enduring hardship without complaining. And the big one, being wronged and not hitting back. There's a saying every Chinese grandmother knows, 吃亏是福, taking the loss is a blessing, because in this way of thinking, it isn't really a loss. How do you spend it? Cruelty, grabbing, cheating, and hitting back. And what can it turn into? Good fortune, good family, health. The oldest classic of Chinese medicine, the Suwen, says that the people of the distant past lived past 100 without slowing down. 以其德全，不危也 Because their 德 was whole. That's a medical textbook telling you your health depends on your character. Okay, right about now, you might be thinking, great, I'll just do a bunch of good things and collect. This is where it gets kind of tricky. Chapter 38, and almost nobody quotes it. 上德不德，是以有德； 下德不失德，是以 Wu De, the highest De, doesn't act like De, so it has De. The lowest De never stops showing its De, so it has none. Let me just say that one more time. That might have been a little confusing. The highest De doesn't act like De, so it has De. The lowest De never stops showing its De, so it has none. If you do a good thing to be seen, you've already been paid. You got the applause. That was the whole transaction, which is why virtue signaling is so funny in Chinese. Signaling, it is, that's how you lose it. There's a famous story about an emperor who built hundreds of temples and then asked a ragged monk how much merit he'd earned or how much de he'd earned. And the monk said, none at all. There's an obvious problem with all this, and China's greatest historian noticed it 2,100 years ago. His name was Sima Qian. People in his day loved to quote this same book. Heaven has no favorites. It's always on the side of the good. And Sima Qian basically says, really? He names two brothers, Bo Yi and Shu Qi, the most upright men of their time, who starved to death on a mountain. He names Confucius' best student, Yan Hui, who was always poor and died young. And he asks, So, how exactly does heaven repay the good? It's a fair question. It's probably your question. And the old answer is the word we just learned, left over. They kept the book longer than one lifetime. And here's the thing, Sima Qian's own history book has a family in it that answers his question. I'll tell you about them at the very end. So I've been picking on that word, virtue, this whole time. But it turns out it wasn't wrong, it was just old. Open the King James Bible from 1611, there's a woman who's been sick for 12 years. She pushes through a crowd and touches the edge of Jesus' robe, and he stops. the text says he knew in himself that virtue had gone out of him. Virtue going out of a body like something real. Modern Bibles change the word to power because somewhere along the way, English forgot what its own word meant. In 1611, virtue meant what de means, something real that you carry, something that can flow out of you and heal somebody. The old herbalist talked about the virtues of a plant the same way. So yes, virtue is the worst translation of de today, but only because we lost the meaning. Chinese never did. So here's what I believe. De is real. It's not a grade somebody gives you, it's something you carry. And every time you take a loss and don't hit back, you're carrying a little more. If that just changed how you hear a word you've used your whole life, that's what this series is going to do, one word at a time. So if you're not subscribed yet, hit like and subscribe, because next I'll show you the easiest way to put some back. And it only works if nobody finds out. Here's the easiest way to put some de back. For the next seven days, do one good thing a day that nobody will ever know about. Yin de. Hidden de. Not your friends, not your mom, not your followers, nobody. It doesn't have to be big. Pay for the coffee of the person behind you and leave before they find out. Put somebody else's cart back. And if you catch yourself about to mention it, that's the exercise. That itch to tell someone is the applause trying to collect. And the second half, if somebody wrongs you this week and you just let it go, say one word to yourself, deposit. That's it. Then notice how you carry yourself. Do the good nobody sees. Heaven keeps better books than we do. If you know someone who's always doing good and never gets the credit, send them this video. Let them know it counts. And in a week, come back and tell me in the comments, not what you did, that's the whole point, tell me what changed. About 2,600 years ago, in the kingdom of Chu, a little boy came home crying and wouldn't eat. He'd seen a snake with two heads, and everyone knew what that meant. Whoever sees one dies. What he did before he ran home is yin de, hidden de, at its purest. And what it left his family is the answer to Sima Qian's question. That story is on your screen right now. Click it to watch. And until next time, Zaijian!