Stop Trying So Hard

You do not need to control everything. In fact, most of the things you are trying to control are already being controlled better without you.

This is the argument Alan Watts makes in his book Just So. Your body digests food without your permission. Your lungs fill without your decision. Your eyes convert light into sight without a single conscious instruction. These things happen. They happen reliably. They happen well.

And yet you spend your days trying to manage things that are not yours to manage.

The body knows

Watts points out that the human body is extraordinarily intelligent. It fights infections while you sleep. It heals cuts without your help. It regulates temperature, blood pressure, and hormone levels through processes you could not name if you tried.

You do not have to think about your heartbeat. You do not have to remind your stomach to digest dinner. You do not have to tell your eyes how to focus on these words.

This is not trivial. The intelligence running your body is complex beyond comprehension. Watts writes that the nervous system is “an undoubtedly intelligent organism that defies the comprehension of even the most learned neurologist.” You are expressing a kind of intelligence that is unthinkably complex from the point of view of conscious analysis, yet perfectly simple from its own point of view.

The problem is that we have been taught to ignore this intelligence. We have been taught that the conscious mind is the boss. That if we are not thinking about something, it is not being done right.

The piano teacher

Watts tells a story about learning piano as a child. His first teacher placed an eraser on top of each hand to force good posture. Every time he played a wrong note, she hit his fingers with a pencil.

The result was not better playing. It was fear. It was tension. It was a child who learned to associate music with punishment.

Later, he had a different teacher. She said: “You must not be afraid of playing the wrong notes. Just forget it. Play it wrong, go over it again, and you’ll eventually get it right. Just keep the same rhythm going, even if you have to slow down. That way, even if it’s the wrong note, it will still be the right rhythm.”

The first teacher tried to control the outcome by punishing mistakes. The second teacher trusted the process. She understood that rhythm matters more than perfection. She understood that learning happens through repetition, not through fear.

Most of us live with the first teacher in our heads. We hit ourselves with pencils for every wrong note. We tighten up. We try to force the right outcome. And the result is the opposite of what we want.

The constipation trap

Watts tells another story from childhood. The nurses were obsessed with constipation. They insisted he do his duty every day. If he did not perform, there was a graduated series of punishments: California syrup of figs, senna tea, cascara, castor oil.

The trouble was that these interventions made things worse. The intestinal tract became so upset that he actually did become constipated. The whole thing started over again.

The primary mistake, Watts says, is “the tendency to issue a commandment to the conscious mind to achieve a result that the conscious mind is perfectly incapable of producing.” The conscious mind has nothing to do with whether you are constipated. That is the job of the unconscious, though Watts prefers to call it the superconscious because it is a lot more clever than the conscious mind is, as well as a great deal more trustworthy.

But we have a hard time buying that. We have been brainwashed to believe in original sin, which says that the unconscious cannot be trusted. And if it wants to take a day off before going to the bathroom, we think there is something sinful going on. There is something wrong with it.

This attitude runs through everything. We issue commandments to ourselves about things we cannot control. We try to force sleep, and the harder we try, the more awake we become. We try to force creativity, and the words dry up. We try to force confidence, and the anxiety grows.

The pilot problem

Watts uses airline pilots as a modern example. Pilots are fallible human beings. They are in charge of enormous jets. Things happen too fast for them to process every detail with conscious decisions. So increasingly, we put more automated decision-making devices into aircraft.

The result is that pilots lose confidence in themselves. More and more, they have no idea how the damn thing works. They are sitting in a cockpit full of computers they did not design, following procedures they did not write, managing systems they do not understand.

The same thing happens in everyday life. We turn to productivity systems, habit trackers, morning routines, and self-help programs. We want the automation. We want the algorithm. We want something external to tell us what to do because we do not trust ourselves to know.

But the more we outsource, the less capable we become. The more we rely on conscious control, the more we forget that we have a superconscious that is better at this than we are.

Original sin and self-distrust

Watts traces this to a specific cultural inheritance. We have been brought up in a civilization inured to the doctrine of original sin. This means we cannot possibly trust ourselves. We are wretched, disobedient little subjects. We are chemical accidents in a mindless universe. We are not to be trusted with our own lives.

This is not a religious argument. It is a psychological observation. Most of us walk around with a quiet certainty that if left to our own devices, we would fail. That we need rules, systems, and external authorities to keep us in line. This is the same trap I wrote about in why trying to fix yourself is the problem. The part of you that is trying to control everything is the part that does not trust anything.

The result is chronic anxiety. We are constantly checking, controlling, and second-guessing. We treat every decision as a test. Every mistake as a catastrophe. Every moment as something that must be managed.

What trusting yourself actually means

Watts is not saying that you should abandon all planning and let chaos take over. He is saying that the intelligence running your life is older and wiser than the part of you that worries about it. This is the same insight behind the idea that you don’t need to be fixed. You are not a broken machine requiring external repair. You are a natural system that already knows how to function.

Your body knows how to heal. Your mind knows how to solve problems. Your breath knows how to continue without your permission. These are not small things. They are evidence that you are already being taken care of by a system that does not need your conscious supervision.

The practical implication is simple: stop trying so hard.

Not because effort is bad. But because the effort you are applying is usually the wrong kind. You are trying to control outcomes that are not yours to control. You are trying to manage processes that are already managing themselves. You are trying to be the pilot of a plane that is already flying itself.

How to practice

Start with something small. Notice when you are holding your breath. Notice when you are clenching your jaw. Notice when you are trying to force a decision that does not need to be made right now.

Then let go. Not all the way. Just enough to notice that the world does not collapse when you stop gripping.

Try this with your body. Sit down. Close your eyes. Notice the breath moving in and out. You do not have to control it. You do not have to make it deeper or slower or better. It is already happening. Your only job is to watch.

Try this with problems. When something is worrying you, write it down. Then put the paper away. Notice that the problem does not disappear, but your relationship to it changes. You are no longer the person trying to solve it. You are the person observing it.

Try this with mistakes. When you mess up, do not hit yourself with a pencil. Do not issue a commandment to your conscious mind. Just notice what happened. Learn from it if you can. Then move on. The rhythm matters more than the note. This is the same principle behind wu-wei, the art of non-forcing. You stop trying to control and start letting things happen through you.

The deeper trust

There is a deeper point here. Watts says that if you realize you are the field of forces in which you live, you can trust yourself to respond spontaneously to situations as they occur. You do not need to plan every move. You do not need to control every outcome. You can trust the intelligence that is already you.

This is not passive. It is active in a different way. It is the difference between swimming upstream and floating on your back. Both are in the water. Both are moving. But one fights the current. The other trusts it.

The current is not your enemy. It is what you are made of.

FAQ

Does this mean I should not set goals? No. It means you should set goals without making your happiness depend on them. You can want things. You can work for things. But do not tie your identity to the outcome. The Stoics called this the Dichotomy of Control. Focus on your actions, not the results.

What about genuine problems that need solving? Some problems need conscious attention. A broken leg needs a doctor. A lost job needs a plan. But most of the anxiety we carry is not about solving problems. It is about trying to control things that are already being handled. The difference is usually obvious once you look for it.

How do I stop the inner teacher from hitting me with pencils? You notice the teacher. When you hear the voice saying you did it wrong, you recognize it as a habit. It is not the truth. It is a recording from a childhood piano lesson. You can thank the recording and let it play out. You do not have to obey it.

Is there a difference between trusting yourself and being lazy? Yes. Laziness is avoiding what needs to be done. Trusting yourself is doing what needs to be done without the inner drama. You can work hard without fighting yourself. The effort feels different when it is not accompanied by self-punishment.

What if I genuinely do not trust myself? That is fine. Start small. Trust your body to digest breakfast. Trust your lungs to keep breathing while you read this. Trust that you will figure out the next step when it comes. Trust is a muscle. It grows with use.

Your body has been running your life since before you had a name for it. Maybe it is time to let it continue.