Act Without Acting
The Text
为无为，事无事，味无味。大小多少，报怨以德。图难于其易，为大于其细。天下难事，必作于易；天下大事，必作于细。是以圣人终不为大，故能成其大。夫轻诺必寡信，多易必多难。是以圣人犹难之，故终无难矣。
Act without acting; serve without serving; taste without tasting. Great the small, many the few; repay injury with virtue. Plan the difficult while it is easy; do the great while it is small. The hard things of the world are done while easy; the great things of the world are done while small. So the wise, never reaching for the great, achieve the great. Light promises seldom keep; much ease, much hardship. So the wise find things hard — and therefore never find them hard.
Reading it
Three registers in one chapter: scale-juggling (great is managed by catching it small), social chemistry (injury repaid with virtue to break the escalation), and promises (light words pre-book hardship). The paradox at the end is an accounting identity: the one who treats everything as difficult accrues no compound interest of difficulty.
三层叠在一章里：尺度（大事靠在小时截住）、化学（报怨以德，切断升级链）、承诺（轻诺预先登记了苦难）。末尾的悖论是会计恒等式：把每件事都先当难事的人，不会积累难事的复利。
Take a thing you keep postponing as hard. Do its smallest step today, and audit the promise you made about when it would be done.
挑一件你一直拖着当难事的事。今天做它最小的一步，并审计你为「何时做完」许过的诺。