It Passes Without So Much Striving

“Do not strive so hard” does not mean doing nothing. It means carrying out what needs to be done faithfully while releasing the extra force that tries to push even the result into our preferred shape. We can plant a seed and water it, but we cannot pull on the sprout to make it grow faster. After doing our part, we must allow conditions time to ripen.

When the mind becomes impatient, it grasps at a result that has not yet arrived instead of attending to what should be done now. We worry about the tenth step before taking the first, and decide our conclusion before hearing the other person to the end. Then even a small difference looks like a great obstruction, and we easily become angry with someone who thinks differently. Impatience does not only increase speed; it narrows the mind's field of view.

Imagine a bamboo grove. When wind blows, thick and slender stalks sway by different amounts and in different directions. No single stalk is moving in the only correct way. Each stands in a different place, has a different thickness, and receives the wind differently. If we tie every stalk to the same angle, they are more likely to break. Harmony does not mean erasing difference. It means moving together without harming one another even amid difference.

People are the same. Family, friends, colleagues, and neighbors cannot all think exactly as we do. A different opinion does not require us to declare the other person wrong, and our discomfort does not require us to change them at once. First notice what has become urgent within you. Is it the wish to be recognized, the wish to control the result, or difficulty enduring uncertainty? Simply seeing this can soften the force of anger.

What comes will also go. Pleasant events do not remain, and frustrating events do not last forever. Conflict in relationships and waves in the mind arise and change according to conditions. Knowing this does not mean avoiding responsibility. Because we do not grasp what will pass as an eternal problem, we can choose the words and actions needed now more accurately.

So today, choose clarity over haste. Do not try to solve everything at once. Calmly do the one thing you can do now. Before trying to bend another person's thought, listen once more; when the mind grows hot, slow down for one breath. After doing your part, trust conditions enough to move in their own time, as wind passes and a bamboo grove settles again.