Feel Good Friday: Find Your Curl

This is the part of the week I enjoy most.

Not because it's the easiest post to write. Because it's the one where the ideas come off the page.

This week we've been talking about Wu Wei. The Tao Te Ching. The champion surfer in the curl versus the flailing surfer next to him. The teapot. The spokes. The uncarved wood. Big ideas. Old ideas. True ideas.

But ideas don't do much until you apply them to something specific, on a specific day, in your actual life. That's what the right-hand page of my Tao Te Ching retranslation is for. The translation is on the left. The application is on the right. Three to five things a person can actually do, on almost any given day.

Here's this week's right-hand page.

Step One: Find the Place You're Flailing

Don't think about this broadly. Don't make a list of everything in your life that needs improvement. That's not the practice.

Pick one thing. The one thing where you are clearly working harder than the results justify. The one thing that has been requiring more and more effort for the same output, or for no output at all. The one thing you've been forcing.

It might be a conversation you keep approaching the wrong way and walking away from frustrated. It might be a project that has been moving in slow motion despite all your attention. It might be a worry you've been gripping for weeks without it changing anything. It might be a relationship where you're doing all the work and the other person isn't meeting you halfway.

Pick one. You probably already know which one it is. The one that came to mind before I finished the sentence.

Step Two: Ask the Wu Wei Question

Here is the question that makes the difference between flailing and riding the curl:

Am I working against the current of this situation, or with it?

Not: am I working hard enough? Not: am I committed enough? Those are the wrong questions. The flailing surfer is working hard and committed. He still falls in.

The right question is about alignment. Is the way you're approaching this situation in sync with what the situation actually needs right now, or are you imposing what you think it needs? Are you forcing a timeline that the situation doesn't support? Are you using energy the situation doesn't want?

Lao Tzu's teapot is the test. Is your cup full of assumptions that need to be emptied before anything new can enter? Is the space at the hub of this situation filled up so completely that the wheel has stopped turning?

You don't have to answer it fully. Just sit with it honestly. Usually the honest sitting is enough to show you where the misalignment is.

Step Three: Do Less with It, Not More

This is the step most people resist.

When we identify a problem, the instinct is to add: more effort, more strategy, more time, more attention. Wu Wei says something different. It says: before you add, ask whether removal is the right move.

What can you stop doing in this situation?

Not forever. Just for this weekend. The conversation you've been forcing: stop initiating it. Let some air in. The project that's stuck: stop pushing on it directly. Work on something adjacent, or work on nothing at all. The worry you've been gripping: set it down. Not because it doesn't matter. Because gripping it is not the same as addressing it.

Wu Wei is not about abandoning your responsibilities. It's about recognizing that some situations need the right kind of action rather than more action. The champion surfer doesn't add more motion when the wave shifts. He adjusts to the new angle.

Adjust to the new angle.

Step Four: Notice What Opens Up

This is the part that surprises people.

When you stop forcing something, even briefly, there's often a moment where you see it differently. A new angle presents itself. A piece of information arrives that changes what you thought was true. The other person in the conversation does something you didn't expect because you stopped filling all the space.

The empty hub. The uncarved wood. The space where something new can come in.

You're not manufacturing that. You're just creating the conditions for it. That's the whole point of Wu Wei. Not engineering outcomes. Creating the conditions where the right outcome becomes possible.

The Weekend Challenge

One place you're flailing. One honest question about alignment. One thing to do less of this weekend.

That's it. Three moves. The right-hand page of the chapter on Wu Wei.

Lao Tzu wrote for common people doing common things. This weekend, the practice is about something common in your life that could use a little more space and a little less force.

I've been a Taoist for 30 years. I still need to do this practice. Probably this weekend, too.

Find your curl. Have a good weekend.