Effortless
Action
“Best to
live without controlling,
act
without expecting,
perform
well without dwelling on it.”
Laozi (Dao
De Jing)
This little piece of
wisdom from ancient China sounds so simple, but is anything but easy.
There is something about being steeped in the Judeo-Christian work
ethic that makes us feel as though great effort is required—hard
work, and not just steady work. In our tradition, if one is not
toiling away, one feels lazy and non-productive. When there are
distractions, as there always are, frustration ensues.
Perhaps this is because
we ascribe greater value to one thing over another. Work is
important, distractions are not. Accomplishing the end result is
important, but the process of getting to that end feels slow and
frustrating. What if we were to value each step equally? Laozi would
call that Wei Wu Wei, or effortless action, doing without doing, a
foreign concept to Western ears. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi referred to
it as Flow; “being completely involved in an activity for its own
sake. The ego falls away. Time flies. Every action, movement, and
thought follows inevitably from the previous one, like playing jazz.
Your whole being is involved, and you're using your skills to the
utmost.” (Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience) Instead, we
work preoccupied. I'm speaking for myself, of course. Our hands are
doing one thing, while our minds are elsewhere, gnawing away on some
past or future problem. No wonder we're exhausted at the end of the
day.
The truth is, the quality
of our work is equivalent to the presence we bring to it. Working
steadily, but without pressure or hurry, being where we are in the
process instead of forcing a conclusion, doing one thing at a time
instead of multi-tasking, is the Zen way of being in the world. The
more we fret and worry, push and pull, the further we are from being
consciously present, and therefore, productive. In the words of
Laozi:
“Those
who know
advise
taking nothing as important.
That way
you can
accomplish important things.”
In the
Spirit,
Jane
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