I was watching a talk by Tai Chi Master Bruce Frantzis which finished with the idea of things being ‘difficult’.
“Daoists have a view about there being two issues in the world:
Is it doable, or not?
If it’s doable, never mind if it’s easy or hard.
If it’s not doable, don’t care if it’s easy or hard (it’s never going to happen anyway).
Easy and Hard all depend on where you are in your life. This is different to the question of ‘Can it be done?’.”
I think this is a really neat way to approach problems, and to stave off worrying about things that you can’t affect or change, as well as cutting to the chase of making decisions to do something.
A lot of the times when things go wrong, the first thing that comes into my mind is ‘Can I do anything about it now?’ If the answer is no, then I ignore the problem and come back to it another time, as opposed to worrying about it but not being able to do anything to change it. If I can do something about it, then I do my best to sort it out, but there are still times when this doesn’t work, and I quite often feel it’s better to remove the problem from my brain so that it doesn’t drain me of energy nagging away at me.
If it’s doable, I’d rather do it now, then I can get on with doing things that make my life enjoyable. If it’s not doable, then is there another option?
Is it doable to practice standing meditation everyday before bed? Yes. Is it hard? Who cares, if it’s something I want to do, and I can do it, then I should do it. If for some reason I can’t do it one night, who cares, if there’s nothing I can do then there’s no point spending time getting anxious or thinking about the failed plan of ‘every night’.
If I don’t presently care because I can’t do it, it doesn’t mean that I ‘don’t care’ at all, just that I’m not going to waste energy on it. If there’s a meteor about to wipe out the planet, and there was nothing I could do to stop it, I would aim to not worry, and get on with living my life. Whether or not it would work in the face of impending doom is another matter. But I have the plan.