The Untidy Energy of Efforting
(this article published in Fast Company Magazine on 4.26.23)
“Do or do not. There is no try.” – Yoda
A friend was telling me recently about a class he took where everyone was instructed to throw a pencil on the floor. The teacher then said to try and pick it up. Everyone dutifully bent over and picked up their pencil. She said “no, I didn’t tell you to pick it up, I told you to try to pick it up,” which resulted in everyone posturing to think about or move toward picking it up without actually doing so. Which of course is ridiculous and a waste of effort, because there is either pick up the pencil (do) or leave the pencil on the floor (do not). There is no try.
But there does appear to be something in between doing and not doing which can take up a lot of energetic resources. Efforting or trying, which is basically thinking about doing, ruminating, or desiring toward something is passivity without actually taking any steps. And with a few exceptions, this foggy place between doing and not doing is typically an uncomfortable place to be.
If Yoda is right, that there is no “try”, then what is this energy-sapping, future-focused, outcome-oriented place between doing and not doing? When one is engaged in true “doing” activity, there is a purity to it. You’re doing what you’re doing until you’re not doing it anymore. And then you do the next thing. Or you don’t. Even imagining or visioning, when intentional, has an active aspect to it. It can also easily become a gray area.
It's easy to discern activity where true effort is required; the client project that needs finishing, the meeting with a stakeholder, learning Spanish, making an omelet. All of these require focus and the expending of energy. They put us in “do” mode. “Do not” mode is the opposite. Don’t finish the project, don’t learn Spanish, don’t make an omelet.
Efforting or trying, in the absence of actually doing something, is not concrete action. It’s a mental state. And while an intention might be a good one, it’s essentially impotent until it becomes an action.
While sitting through a weekend workshop recently, I noticed how spacious and grounded I felt since I’d arrived. There was either do (talk to people, take a class, eat lunch) or don’t do. The demands of daily life were subjugated and the grounds were beautiful, so it wasn’t difficult.
But while sitting there that weekend, observing the simple open spaciousness absent of wheel-turning thinking, I wanted to discern why it stood out. I contrasted it with the more frequent mental talk track that often goes unchecked for many of us, even in the midst of doing something else. This mental talk track holds an energy of efforting, and can arise at home or work or anywhere that the molecules over one’s head scream with to-dos and driving toward outcomes. The talk track jabbers about doing things when you aren’t, or can’t be, actually doing them. “Plan next week. Figure out X problem. Be productive. Try to lose weight. Mitigate disaster. Worry. Get ahead.” There’s a notable difference between the messiness of thinking about doing these things vs the cleanness of just doing them.
It can be exhausting. Especially when you consider how many minutes in the day, in between actually doing things, that thinking about doing things is the dominant energy. It’s no surprise that a derivative of the word striving is strife, defined as bitter discord, conflict, or antagonism.
So what can “trying” or “efforting”, in the absence of needing to actually do something, be replaced with? Here are a few options:
· Allowing - Permitting what is, in the present moment, to just be without trying to fix or improve it.
· Being – Sitting in conscious awareness; noticing life in action.
· Not thinking – Noticing the wheels turning and slowing them down to a stop, or at least letting the thoughts pass like clouds.
There’s also a deeper reason why a “trying mindset” is insidious. Inherent in “trying” is the belief that who you are, or what you’re doing right now in this present moment, is not enough. Not whole. Lacking. That “there” must be better than “here”, and that you must do something to get from here to there. We can find ourselves in the trap of spending our present moments, our opportunities to be in the now, with thinking about the “there” where we’d rather be. A state of presence and understanding of present wholeness is a prophylactic to unnecessary efforting.
The 10th century Indian mahasiddha Tilopa developed six nails (or directives, or words of advice). As a spiritual directive or meditation instruction, those nails are:
1. Don’t recall – think about what happened in the past
2. Don’t imagine – project into the future
3. Don’t think – turn off the brain engine
4. Don’t examine – scrutinize, analyze, try to figure things out
5. Don’t control – manipulate, force,
6. Rest – pause and be still
(translations are mine)
The value of these, it would seem, goes well beyond the meditation cushion. When engaged in true focused activity, these are likely to take more of a back seat. But when doing something more passive such as sitting, driving, or lying in bed, recalling, imagining, thinking, examining, controlling, have the space to run unchecked.
Trying and efforting is ego grabbing the microphone. Thinking about how to protect yourself, acquire something, or mitigate risk is ego running the show. If you need to actually protect yourself by running, leaving, or establishing a boundary, do it. That’s action. But ruminating about your lack of safety doesn’t keep you safe and steals your peace.
A quote that sat on my bedside table for years said that “moments of silence are part of the music.” It isn’t coincidental that the symbol for a pause when playing or singing music is called a rest. It is that very space in between the notes, or the doing in this metaphor, that makes the music of the notes compelling. The playing of the notes is the do, and the pausing for the rests is the do not. And therein is the song made, without the untidy energy of trying.