When a government seems clumsy or loose,
it often brings peace and well-being.
When it interferes with everything,
it breeds unrest and pain.

Misery hides within happiness.
Happiness lies just beside misery.
Who can tell where one ends and the other begins?

Trying to fix things too tightly
leads to distortion.
What begins as good
can turn harmful.
People have long been blind to this truth.

So the sage stays soft—
a square with no sharp corners,
a light that doesn’t dazzle.
He walks a straight path,
but doesn’t force others to follow.