In the first Star Wars movie, Princess Leia says the following quote to Grand Moff Tarkin: “The more you tighten your grip, Tarkin, the more star systems will slip through your fingers.” You may be familiar with this notion if you’ve ever tried to hold onto a fistful of sand. If you squeeze it, you’ll lose a lot more sand than if you relax your hand and just let it sit in your palm. This relates to a concept I’ve learned about within the past year called wu wei. Often translated as “effortless action”, wu wei is an important concept in Confuscianism and Taoism. It’s all about being in the moment, getting out of your own way. and entering the state of flow.
The idea that the harder you pursue something, the less likely you are to get it applies to many things in life. If you’re always pursuing happiness, then you’ll always feel like you don’t have it and you’ll be anything but happy. Happiness comes from letting go and not constantly wanting everything around you to unfold in a certain way. The same goes for relaxation. The harder you try to make yourself relax, the more tense and stressed you’ll feel. When you stop trying to relax, then you become relaxed. I’ve found this to be the case when I try to speak. If I’m searching hard to find the ideal words, arrange them perfectly, and say them just right, then I can barely get a word out. The more I let go and allow the words to flow out of me, the more articulate I become. This also applies to my writing; a lot of ideas come to me when I’m not looking for them, such as when I’m meditating, floating, or just going about my day.
This is extremely counter-intuitive for a lot of people, especially those who grow up in the West and are taught from a young age that they have to try hard to get what they want. It’s incredibly common in the West to hear that you have to go after what you want with all your might and if you don’t have it, it just means that you’re not trying hard enough. While some purposeful action toward a desired goal is important, too much can backfire. Those who are always worried about their health often get sick more easily than those who take good care of themselves without stressing over everything. People who spend every spare moment exercising tend to get injured and have to take a lot of time off to recover, making them worse off than those who work out less while still exercising enough to make progress. So be careful how hard you push yourself when you pursue a goal. You might be doing yourself more harm than good if you’re pushing yourself so hard toward what you want that your efforts end up pushing you farther away from it.