The second principle of the Tao can be synopsized as: do less to do more. For a while now, my mantra has been: “Do less.” This has been incredibly hard but also incredibly productive. It is about reducing busy work, commitments to things, and people you don’t care about. Instead, it is about creating space to think, write, and act where you believe you can do more. A friend shared a key idea in line with this from the Hoffman Process: we are human beings, not human doings. And, spoiler alert, the overall goal of life is to end suffering by being fully at home in ourselves.
Robert Montgomery creates large-scale, site-specific sculptural installations of text. They are his ideas, poetry, aspirations, thoughts, dreams, and sometimes, for some people, they are truths. I experienced the first one soon after the suicide of my college boyfriend, who I will always love. It read: “The people you love become ghosts inside of you, and like this you keep them alive.” And as Mary Oliver asks, “What will you do with your one precious, wild life?” Our time here to do and be is limited—how do you want to be remembered? What is it you desire your legacy to be? And who are you sharing yourself with so that they will be kept company by your memory? Do less. And do only what matters.
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