Bears like fish. The way it catches fish is to slap the fish in the river with the palm of its hand and let it be hit to the shore. Imagine that a Xiong Gang catches a fish and a hunter appears. At this time, he has two choices: 1. Drive the bear away and get the fish. 2. When the bear is eating fish, attack and kill it.

Bears are fierce, so it is not easy to kill them. To get bear's paw, you must use fish as bait. If you want to get fish, you have to drive away the bear (lose its paw), and you can't have both.

From Mencius:

Fish, what I want, bear's paw, what I want, you can't have it both ways, and you can take the bear's paw instead of the fish. Life, what I want, righteousness, what I want You can't have both, and you have to sacrifice your life for righteousness.

I want both fish and bear's paw, but I can't have both, so I want bear's paw. Life and righteousness are what I want, but if I can't have them both, I'd rather lose them.

Mencius' words warned people to pay attention to righteousness, preferring to give their lives for righteousness, but people often forgot the original intention, instead, they talked about that you can't have your cake and eat it. Although, this is also a truth.

People should not be too greedy. Things can't let a person take advantage of everything. What you gain, you lose. We should learn to give up the secondary and care about the important.