When I tell people I think life should be effortless, they usually
laugh. They think I’m joking. Everyone knows life isn’t effortless, that
getting things done and achieving anything worthwhile requires hard
work, time and a lot of effort. Success costs, and people who become
successful without paying are either cheats, crooks or just lucky.
Think, for a moment, about the metaphors you use to describe your
experience of life. We often see life as a struggle, a battle, a war, a
difficult journey with obstacles to be overcome, a test to be passed.
These images colour our actions and determine the way we go about doing
things. We have come to see brute force as the best way to get things
done. In the west, especially, we tend to carry around images of the
lone pioneer, the individual battling against the forces of chaos,
taming nature. To have achieved is to have beaten the odds, to have
struggled and held on and never given up. Victory is for the tenacious,
the resilient, the person who never gives in.
But there is another way of seeing things, and another way of getting
things done, a way which sees life differently and recognizes the
importance of harmony, balance and living peacefully, the importance of
following the natural course of things.
Every situation – whether a relationship, an organization, a
community – has within itself a natural structure, a kind of grain along
which everything flows. Sometimes it’s called a ‘culture.’ Every
situation is different, and the effortlessly successful amongst us do
not make assumptions. They watch carefully until they understand the
natural geometry of the situation, and seek to fit in. They don’t waste
energy fighting the way things are – they ‘go with the flow.’
Success can come about by force – the energy of revolution can make
things shift – but sustainable results only ever come about by going
with the grain, seeking out the path of least resistance, and hence
leveraging off the natural structure of the situation. Lao Tzu, the semi
mythical Taoist master, wrote, ‘By letting it go it all gets done.
The world is won by those who let it go. But when you try and try, the
world is beyond winning.’ Water always seeks the low ground and
always yields to resistance. Yet it carries enormous energy and can,
over many years, wear down sharp rocks into small, smooth pebbles and
carve wide, deep channels through the landscape.
When I was a kid, my father taught me how to saw wood. He showed me
which way to cut – no good cutting against the grain since it will be
hard work and the timber will only crack and splinter. And he showed me
how to hold the saw – not too tightly, not pushing down into the wood
but allowing it to move naturally and fluidly, guiding it ever so
gently. Let the saw do the work, was his summary. The skilful craftsman knows better than to use force.
Lao Tzu continues, ‘Nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished.’
Our attempts to speed things along and do things in our own way and in
our own time usually make things worse. To pull fruit off the tree
before it is ripe is to end up with sour fruit; to row against the
current is futile.
A river rarely takes a straight course, meandering instead through
the natural shape of the landscape, keeping to the lowest points, moving
around mountains and hills. But the water keeps flowing powerfully,
carving great valleys into the landscape. Like nature, our own
achievements can take time; they happen in their own way and at their
own pace.
To resist the natural course – to row against the tide – is
exhausting and pointless; those who try only wear themselves out getting
nowhere. But hose who embrace the reality of the situation, tap into
its energy and use it creatively can be wildly successful. Instead of
fighting the natural order, they use its power and its energy to create
results – and they do it effortlessly.
The effortlessly successful are also open to new experiences and
accept that the future is a blank canvas. In the end, we know very
little. My own life looks nothing like the way I imagined it; indeed, in
many ways it is exactly what I would not have chosen. But
things could hardly have worked out better. It is my belief that, when
we relax and stop pretending that we are in control, life starts to
work.
The truth is that we don’t really know what we want. Despite our
search for certainty and a clear vision of the future, we cannot know
what the future holds for us, what new lands we shall discover when our
ship has been blown across the sea. All we can do is keep a vigilant eye
for opportunity, relax and enjoy the journey. ‘Thinking that you know is a kind of sickness. The wise are sick of sickness, and so they are well.’
An effortless life is a truly effective one. When energy is not
wasted on misguided attempts at control, and when we seek to follow the
natural course, we can be supremely effective. We can find the tipping
points and create enormous and sustainable change. And when we are open
to new experiences, ready to fall into whatever comes our way, we can
experience a truly vibrant and meaningful kind of life.
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