# The Success You Never Notice


(Translated from the Chinese version with the help of ChatGPT.)

I recently learned a new Chinese idiom from one of Li Tianhao's videos: **曲突徙薪** (*qū tū xǐ xīn*).

Here's what it means.

---

Literally, **曲** means "bend," **突** means "chimney," **徙** means "move," and **薪** means "firewood." The idiom describes bending a straight chimney and moving the firewood away from the stove. Figuratively, it means **eliminating the causes of a disaster before it happens**—taking preventive action rather than dealing with the consequences.

The story comes from the *Book of Han* (*Hanshu*).

> A visitor noticed that the host's chimney was straight and that a pile of firewood was stacked beside the stove. He warned the host, "Rebuild the chimney with a bend and move the firewood farther away. Otherwise, your house may catch fire." The host remained silent and ignored the advice. Soon afterward, the house did catch fire. Fortunately, the neighbors came together and managed to extinguish the flames.

---

The idiom was new to me, but the idea certainly wasn't.

The famous physician **Bian Que** once said that his own medical skills were far inferior to those of his eldest brother:

> "My eldest brother treats illness before it takes shape, so his reputation never extends beyond our family. My second brother treats illness when it is still barely perceptible, so his reputation never extends beyond our village. As for me, I puncture veins, prescribe potent medicine, and perform operations on the skin. That is why my name is known throughout the feudal states."[^bianque]

Nobel Prize-winning economist and Chicago School leader **Milton Friedman** famously observed:

> "Only a crisis—actual or perceived—produces real change."

The *Work Chronicles* comic [*Prevention vs Cure*](https://www.workchronicles.com/p/comic-prevention-vs-cure) makes exactly the same point.

We all know that prevention is better than cure. Yet people naturally celebrate the superheroes who extinguish spectacular fires rather than those who quietly prevent them from starting in the first place. This tendency seems universal, across cultures and across centuries. The same theme frequently appears in discussions of SRE, DevOps, and security engineering (for example, [*The Detriments of Hero Culture*](https://naksecurity.medium.com/the-detriments-of-hero-culture-3fc455963d6e)).

{{<figure src="work-chronicles.jpg">}}

Thinking further, I was reminded of Chapter 17 of the *Tao Te Ching*:

> The highest rulers are those whose existence the people barely know. Next come those whom the people love and praise; then those whom they fear; and finally those whom they despise... When the work is accomplished and everything is in order, the people all say, "We did it ourselves."

The truly exceptional are not those who repeatedly prove themselves by solving crises. They are the ones who prevent crises from happening at all—so successfully that no one even realizes they were there.

[^bianque]: *He Guan Zi* (鹖冠子), Chapter 16, "Shixian" (世贤).