I’ve always been hung up on the outcome.

I’ve always needed to know that my actions have consequences, that if I take the right steps, I would get the result I was aiming for. Life has taught me that none of this is true. That even my long-held belief in cause and effect, sowing and reaping - even that doesn’t always pan out.

Looking ahead to the new year, and the barrage of resolutions and inspirational outlooks coming at me from all sides, I’ve been wondering what it would be like if I didn’t have any goals or plans or achievement requirements imposed upon myself.

I’ve been diving into some Taoist ideas, specifically the concept of Wu-Wei, something a friend told me about, the idea of “force nothing.” The whole premise threw me off at first. It feels like the opposite of the boot-strap, get-after-it mentality that I have operated under for so long. It seems to violate the “god helps those who help themselves” principle. The thought of doing LESS to find direction is foreign, to say the least.

But when I look back over my life, the greatest successes I’ve had were not from trying hard and making things happen, they were doors that opened because of steps I took that were in front of me. Obvious choices with very unexpected “outcomes.” People I have met along the way, connections I never looked for that have led me to exactly the space and time that I know I am supposed to be.

All of the striving moments - struggling my way through a college education that hasn’t resulted in much more than a lot of debt and anxiety, working jobs that violate my sense of purpose and self because they make more “financial” sense than the alternative… these forced situations have rarely resulted in outcomes that I intended, often the opposite. Not to say that everything doesn’t happen for some reason, and I have found value in these experiences, I wouldn’t be who or where I am without them, but did they have the pivotal importance that I assigned to them?

I’m beginning to think that everything you need to know about Taoism is already modeled for us by dogs. Let’s take Johnny. Johnny is a rescue mutt of uncertain origin. Johnny gives zero fucks about pleasing anyone, and yet he regularly does so in his own innocent self-interest. Johnny lives every moment without thought for the next. When he is hungry he eats (which is always, if we allow it), if he is tired, he sleeps. He is unconcerned if we want something from him, if we pick him up and carry him to the couch for compulsory snuggling, he doesn’t fight it. If he gets hot and wants to leave, he leaves. If he is motivated to get apples from the neighbor’s yard next door, he digs a hole under the fence. He does no more than he needs to do to accomplish his mission. He has nothing to prove. No future goals, only immediate needs. Johnny does not force things. He lives Wu Wei. Wu Wei doesn’t mean DO nothing, it just means don’t strive to make it happen. Take life as it comes and accept the moment for what it is. Just like Johnny. Johnny has come to terms with the fact that there is much in his life he has no control over and he lives happily with the choices he does have.

The idea of Wu Wei takes different forms. It can be interpreted to mean not denying yourself anything. Conversely, it can also mean that you allow your self nothing. It can mean doing everything put before you without contest or it can mean that you take nothing on that is not critical for survival. What I am learning is that Wu Wei is all of these things in seasons and phases of life. As we grow up through life, we learn through allowances and doing things, that some of it does not bring us life. We identify the things that we do and allow that rob us of health and joy. And then as we grow older, we learn to eliminate those things. We allow less, we do fewer things. Wu Wei doesn’t have boundaries. It doesn’t have walls that force us back into form. It flows, like water, around life’s twists and turns. It rolls, like Johnny, from moment to moment, seeking only to exist in the present moment.

All of this makes me question my whole approach to life. The goals and plans that I have always felt like I needed to have to work toward, to strive for. Imagining a life without them brings a bizarre weightlessness to my thoughts. What if none of it really matters? It’s like the stoic idea of memento mori - “remember at any moment you could die.” This may be your last breath. It isn’t morbid, it removes the weight of tomorrow and allows today to be the climax, the end, the goal of your life, and it leaves tomorrow as the mystery that it really is no matter how much we think we control.

I am learning to like this idea of letting go of outcomes. To do the things I do each day as they present themselves for the sole purpose of winning this day. Not looking for the ways I can control tomorrow with my actions today. It’s a relief.