How to Read “Not changing your father’s way for three years can be called filial piety”
Sannen chichi no michi wo aratamuru koto naki wa kō to iu beshi
Meaning of “Not changing your father’s way for three years can be called filial piety”
This proverb means that true filial piety is keeping your father’s teachings and methods unchanged for three years after his death. Changing what your father taught you right after he dies could mean rejecting his way of life.
Even if you have your own ideas, you should first respect your father’s values and methods for three years. You should try living according to his way. Only by doing this can you show true respect for your father.
This proverb applies to situations like inheriting a family business or making important family decisions. Today, people use it to talk about respecting a parent’s wishes. It also reminds us to avoid hasty changes and make careful judgments.
The proverb is not about blind obedience. The three years serve as a period to deeply understand your father’s teachings. During this time, you can see their true value. This is what makes the proverb profound.
Origin and Etymology
This proverb likely comes from the Analects of Confucius, specifically the Xue Er chapter. It has been valued in Japan for centuries as Confucius’s teaching about ideal filial piety.
In Confucianism, filial piety means more than just being kind to parents. It means respecting their way of life and carrying on their teachings. The father was the one who set the family’s direction. His “way” represented the values and lifestyle of the entire family, not just personal preferences.
The three-year period has deep meaning. This was the traditional mourning period. It was also considered the time needed for grief to heal. Right after losing a parent, emotions are unstable.
Making hasty changes during this time could lead to regret. The three years give you time to reflect on your father’s teachings. You can calmly judge whether they were right or should be changed. This is where true filial piety lies.
This saying has been passed down because it contains both respect for parents and wisdom about careful judgment. It offers deep insight into human relationships.
Usage Examples
- I’ll continue the business relationships my father valued, following the spirit of “Not changing your father’s way for three years can be called filial piety”
- I want to change the previous management style, but “Not changing your father’s way for three years can be called filial piety” tells me to wait a bit longer
Universal Wisdom
This proverb speaks to the universal human themes of loss and inheritance. When we lose someone important, we feel torn between two conflicting emotions.
One is the desire to preserve that person’s way of life. The other is the urge to move forward in our own way.
Everyone wants to believe their own way is right. Young people especially try to prove their worth by changing old methods. But this proverb asks us to pause.
Why did your father choose that path? What experiences and wisdom lay behind his decisions? Before rushing to reject his way, try to understand it first. This is what the proverb teaches.
Three years is a grace period. It allows emotions to settle and lets you see things clearly. Decisions made in grief often lead to regret later. By taking time to practice your father’s teachings, you may discover their true value.
This proverb has endured because it contains timeless truths. It warns against human impatience. It calls for respect toward the wisdom of those who came before us. These lessons transcend any era.
When AI Hears This
In digital communication, noise always mixes with data during transmission. This is where “redundancy” becomes important. You send the same information multiple times or add extra data. This way, even if part gets corrupted, you can restore the original information.
This strategy of “not changing immediately” is surprisingly similar to maintaining your father’s methods for three years.
Your father’s methods contain his experience and judgment. But you cannot immediately tell if they were truly excellent decisions or just products of circumstance and timing. Information theory calls this the “signal-to-noise separation problem.”
If you change everything right after your father’s death, you risk throwing away valuable signals along with the noise.
The three-year period acts as a temporal filter. During this time, similar situations repeat several times. This reveals which parts of your father’s methods were universal wisdom and which were responses to specific circumstances.
It works like “detecting errors through multiple sampling” in communication engineering.
In other words, this three-year retention period is not mere sentimentality. It is a rational buffer period to prevent losing valuable information. It protects truly valuable information from the noise of hasty changes.
Lessons for Today
This proverb teaches modern people “the value of waiting.” Modern society values speed. It demands instant change and innovation. But some truly important things only become visible with time.
When you inherit something, wanting to change it to your own style is natural. But pause before you do. Why did your predecessor or ancestor choose that method? What thoughts and experiences lay behind that decision?
The attitude of trying to understand is what true inheritance means.
This applies beyond parent-child relationships. It matters when taking over work, continuing traditions, or reconsidering your own past choices. Rejecting the past is easy. Learning from the past is far more valuable.
You do not need to rush. Taking time to engage deeply reveals wisdom you could not see before. You will learn to distinguish what truly needs changing from what should be preserved.
This is the warm yet stern message this proverb offers to those of us living today.
Comments