Be like water

Legend says the sage Laozi worked as a keeper of archives at the Zhou court. Tired of the world, he rode west on an ox. At the border pass, a guard asked him to write down his wisdom before he left.

He wrote eighty-one short chapters and disappeared. We know them as the Tao Te Ching, and one of its favourite images is water.

Water doesn't argue with rocks. It flows around them, settles in low places, and keeps moving. Yet over time, as the Tao Te Ching says elsewhere, nothing is better at wearing down what is hard.

Worry often pushes us to force things: fix it now, make them agree, control how it goes. Wu wei, often translated "non-forcing", isn't doing nothing. It's acting without strain, in step with how things actually move.

Ask where you're pushing against something that won't move, and what the softer path around it would be.

• ACT

  Willingness: making room for what's here instead of struggling against it.

• Mindfulness

  Urge surfing rides a wave instead of fighting it.

Think of something you've been pushing hard against.

Your answers stay in this page and aren't saved or sent anywhere.

You've argued with a coworker and want to settle it right now. What would water do?