Hexagram 32.2 — Duration (Second Line)

Original Text & Translation

「悔亡。」 — Regret vanishes.

These two characters carry profound simplicity. The second line of Duration occupies the central position of the lower trigram—a place of inner strength and balanced yang energy. Here, the oracle affirms that when you act from your center, aligned with your true capacity, the emotional residue of doubt and regret naturally dissolves. You are neither overreaching nor underperforming; you are simply being what you are, sustainably.

Core Meaning

Line two sits at the foundation of the inner trigram, representing the solid ground of self-awareness. In Duration, this position emphasizes the importance of knowing your constitutional capacity—your energetic bandwidth, your skill ceiling at this moment, your emotional reserves. When you honor these boundaries, you create a sustainable rhythm that can be maintained indefinitely.

The vanishing of regret is not a promise of external success; it is a statement about internal alignment. Regret arises when we betray ourselves—when we pretend to be stronger than we are, when we commit to what we cannot sustain, when we perform rather than practice. This line dissolves that tension by inviting radical honesty about what you can actually maintain over time. From that honesty, genuine endurance emerges.

Practically, this means choosing the pace you can keep, the load you can carry, the commitments you can honor without depletion. It means saying no to opportunities that would require you to become someone you're not. It means building systems around your actual energy patterns rather than idealized ones. The result is not mediocrity but mastery—because only what is sustainable can compound.

Symbolism & Imagery

The second line of Duration embodies the image of deep roots. A tree does not regret the depth of its roots; it simply grows them as far as its nature and soil allow. Those roots then support whatever height the tree achieves. Similarly, this line asks you to root your actions in honest self-assessment rather than comparison or aspiration.

Thunder and wind—the trigrams of Hexagram 32—represent constant movement, but the second line anchors that movement in stillness. It is the eye of the storm, the axis around which sustainable action revolves. This is not passivity but centered activity: you move from a place of rest rather than agitation, and therefore your movement can continue indefinitely.

The vanishing of regret also evokes the image of clear water. When sediment settles, water becomes transparent. When you stop churning yourself with unrealistic demands, clarity emerges. You see what you can do, what you cannot do, and what you can build toward over time. That clarity is the foundation of all lasting work.

Action Guidance

Career & Business

• Audit your sustainable pace: Track your energy across a typical week. Identify the rhythm of focused work you can maintain without burnout. Design your commitments around that rhythm, not around peak performance.
• Say no to misaligned opportunities: If a project requires you to pretend expertise you don't have or sustain hours you cannot maintain, decline it. Regret comes from overcommitment, not from honest boundaries.
• Build on proven capacity: Expand only from what you've already demonstrated you can sustain. Add 10% to your current reliable output, not 100%.
• Document your actual processes: Write down what you actually do, not what you wish you did. Optimize the real system, not the imaginary one.
• Communicate your bandwidth clearly: Let collaborators know your realistic timelines and capacity. Under-promise and over-deliver becomes natural when you start from truth.
• Measure consistency over intensity: Track streaks, not spikes. Celebrate showing up at your sustainable level every day over occasional heroics.

Love & Relationships

• Offer what you can actually give: Don't promise emotional availability you don't have or lifestyle changes you can't sustain. Love built on honest capacity endures; love built on performance collapses.
• Communicate your needs without apology: Your energetic and emotional requirements are data, not weaknesses. Share them clearly so your partner can work with reality, not fantasy.
• Choose sustainable expressions of care: Grand gestures fade; small, repeatable acts of attention compound. Find the frequency of connection you can maintain indefinitely.
• Release comparison: Your relationship operates at its own natural pace. Regret vanishes when you stop measuring against others' timelines or milestones.
• Honor your partner's authentic range: Just as you cannot sustain what isn't yours, neither can they. Build a shared life around mutual honesty about capacity.

Health & Inner Work

• Find your minimum effective dose: Identify the smallest practice that produces real benefit—ten minutes of movement, five minutes of stillness, one mindful meal. Do that daily rather than sporadic intensity.
• Track recovery as seriously as effort: Your sustainable capacity includes rest. Monitor sleep quality, stress levels, and energy trends. Adjust load accordingly.
• Build around your chronotype: Work with your natural energy peaks and troughs rather than fighting them. Morning person? Protect that time. Night owl? Stop pretending otherwise.
• Practice self-compassion as data: When you notice self-criticism, ask: "Am I demanding something unsustainable?" Adjust the demand, not your worth.
• Celebrate maintenance: Keeping a practice alive for a year is more valuable than perfecting it for a month. Regret vanishes when you value consistency over optimization.

Finance & Strategy

• Invest within your risk tolerance: Your actual risk tolerance—not the one you wish you had. Regret comes from positions that keep you awake, not from missing gains.
• Build systems you'll actually use: A simple budget you follow beats a complex one you abandon. Design for your real behavior patterns.
• Set sustainable savings rates: Choose the percentage you can maintain through all seasons, not the aggressive rate you can only hit in good months.
• Avoid lifestyle inflation: Your authentic capacity for enjoyment doesn't scale linearly with income. Find the level of comfort that feels right and hold it there.
• Review decisions against your values: Financial regret usually stems from choices misaligned with what you actually care about. Spend and invest according to your real priorities, not borrowed ones.

Timing, Signals, and Readiness

The second line of Duration does not mark a dramatic moment but a steady state. You are ready to act when you have clarity about your sustainable capacity and are willing to commit to it fully. The signal is internal: a sense of calm alignment rather than excited ambition or anxious striving.

Watch for these indicators that you're operating in your authentic range: (1) you can describe your commitments without exaggeration or hedging; (2) you feel tired at the end of efforts but not depleted; (3) you can imagine continuing your current pace for months or years; (4) you're not constantly comparing yourself to others' capacity; and (5) you feel regret fading as you honor your boundaries.

If you feel chronic regret—wishing you'd done more, done differently, been someone else—that's a signal you're operating outside your sustainable range. The remedy is not more effort but more honesty. Adjust your commitments downward until regret vanishes, then build slowly from that foundation.

When This Line Moves

A moving second line in Duration suggests a shift from establishing your sustainable foundation to testing its resilience. You have found your authentic range; now circumstances may ask you to maintain it under pressure or through change. The transformation points toward how your grounded consistency interacts with external dynamics.

Depending on your divination method, note the resulting hexagram to understand the specific nature of this evolution. The movement typically indicates that your self-knowledge and sustainable practices are about to be integrated into a larger pattern—a relationship, a project, a community. Your task is to carry your centeredness into that new context without abandoning the honest boundaries that made regret vanish in the first place.

Practical takeaway: as you move into new situations, re-establish your sustainable rhythms explicitly. Don't assume that what worked in isolation will automatically transfer. Communicate your capacity clearly in the new context, negotiate for the conditions you need, and be willing to walk away from situations that require you to betray your authentic range.

Concise Summary

Hexagram 32.2 teaches the profound power of operating within your authentic capacity. Regret vanishes not when you achieve more but when you align your actions with your true nature and sustainable limits. This line invites you to build everything—career, relationships, health, wealth—on the foundation of honest self-knowledge. From that foundation, endurance becomes effortless, and what you create can last.