The moral, explained
The old Chief planted one tiny seed. Oog laughed: you'll never sit under it. Grub laughed so hard he fell asleep. Every day the Chief watered it, and twenty years went by. The tree grew. Grub's beard grew (a bird moved in). Now Oog was old, and the sun was hot, and the Chief was sitting in the shade, eating the tree's fruit. Oog wished he'd planted one twenty years ago. So he planted one today.
"The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now" means that regret about not starting is a reason to start, not a reason to give up. Savings, skills, health and friendships all grow like trees: slowly at first, then all at once. The person who started twenty years ago isn't smarter than you, they just started. And twenty years from now, today will be the day you wish you had.
The Chief is the other half of the story. People laughed because they assumed he'd never enjoy it. He did. Start things even when the payoff looks far away; it often arrives sooner than the people laughing expect.
Who really said it?
It's usually called a Chinese proverb, but there's no evidence for that. Quote Investigator found the earliest strong match in an Ohio newspaper, The Plain Dealer, in 1967, where a Cleveland city councilman used it without claiming it as his own. Older versions about planting trees exist, but no old Chinese source has been found. So it's a modern, anonymous saying, and a good one.
Try this today
Plant one small seed: open the savings account, book the first lesson, send the message, write the first page. It doesn't have to grow today. It just has to be in the ground.
Talk about it
What's the tree you wish you'd planted twenty years ago?
