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On Caring Without Clinging for Inner Calm
Because caring and fearful clinging create different results
Philosophers and wisdom teachers tell us to care less. You may find the idea strange, especially if you believe the world needs more caring people, not fewer. But you might have misunderstood the main message. The real teaching is to stop clinging to what you want to happen. Another way to put it is to be less serious and stop trying to force life to go your way.
What happens when you take yourself, and life, too seriously
My thoughts and the big events in my life feel important to me, and I’m sure you feel the same yourself. We want to feel safe, loved, and happy, and those things matter. Yet something odd occurs when we strive too hard to make what we want happen.
Our efforts to create happiness, success, and a wonderful life can lead to stress overload. The opposite of inner calm. Trying too hard strains us and has a knock-on effect. The struggle to be happy and well generates tension that, paradoxically, makes us feel unwell.
The oddest result of clinging, another word for trying too hard, is that the world responds to the energy of struggle we emit, not our intention.
