One on the basic assumptions underlying Western society is the notion that we will not achieve unless we strive.

One of the clearest statements of this principle is in sixth chapter of the Book of Proverbs, which denounces idleness. The advice is blunt and unequivocal:

The import of this passage is clear--if you are not diligent you will starve.

Max Weber, arguing that the Protestant work ethic gave rise to capitalism, suggested that the reason why Protestants, Calvinists in particular, worked so hard, was that they [105] considered business success an indication that God favoured them. It substantiated their claim to be among the elect.

Protestants, however, cannot lay exclusive claim to the work ethic. Other religions and cultures have regarded work as the duty owed to God, or as necessary to survival.

A Modicum of Truth

There is a great deal of truth in the assumption that unless we put in the effort we will not achieve, provide food, clothing and shelter for our families, or have anything to share.

This is most obvious in subsistence economies, and in societies that lack welfare provisions.

The principle is no less true in affluent cultures, though it may be less conspicuous. To survive and prosper, we must work. While a generation of young people, raised in affluence, assumes that the government has a responsibility to provide for them, this provision is only possible because the employed are taxed. The fact that a society provides for those least able to manage is an indication of its affluence and maturity. On the other hand, the expectation, on the part of some, that society has a duty to provide for them, whatever their circumstances, is an unfortunate byproduct of an otherwise healthy system.

In broad terms, it remains true, that, to survive, we must put in the effort. If lassitude, or indolence, afflicted the whole society, it would collapse, becoming a prey of predators. [106]

Goals

It is important to set goals, and put in the effort to achieve them.

The fact that we set goals and strive to fulfil them, however, does not guarantee success. The goals may be inappropriate, or unachievable. External factors may subvert our intentions. Our timing may be out. Competitors may have entered the field before us. Others may not be ready for our vision, may undercut our effort, or squeeze us out of the market.

Nevertheless, in spite of these caveats, it remains true that we need to set goals and work to achieve them.

However!

However, if taken to an extreme, our goal-setting and striving work against the intention underlying them--the desire to live a fulfilling and fruitful life. Our striving can so take us over that we become the prisoners of our ambitions.

We can do ourselves physical and psychological damage. We can push our bodies beyond reasonable limits, and exhaust our psychological reserves. Drivenness can consume us. Feeding the unhealthy side of our ambition can lead to an exaggerated sense of our importance. It can develop in us an insatiable thirst for acclaim. This can result in our falling victim to the law of diminishing returns, where each achievement satisfies us less. Our spirituality also suffers. The sense of what is meaningful is corrupted, experiences of self-transcendence become fewer, and we lose the capacity to live the now. We are trapped in an oscillation between past and future, where the present is passed over, rather than enjoyed.

Others, particularly those close to us, see less of us because we are always in a hurry, or preoccupied. Because of our [107] distraction, and the compromises we make, our relationships become shallower, more superficial.

The community also loses out. We contribute our share of effort to making the pace of life more hectic, elevating the profit motive, and shifting the balance, in relationships, from connectedness to clinical transactions.

All of this has sad ecological effects. In the interests of increasing profit, we damage the environment.

While we need to work, set goals and put in the effort to prosper, our striving sometimes takes us over. The tail wags the dog.

What Drives Us

What drives us to strive?

Security and Self-Esteem

Striving was initially a consequence of the battle for physical survival. However, once physical needs were assured, attention turned to ensuring psychological security. We needed to defend ourselves against the adverse judgments of others.

The need for physical and emotional security fostered acquisitiveness.

Whether driven by fear of scarcity, or the benefits of plenty, we became materialists. We attempted to exorcise fear of penury by accumulating things. However, while wealth offers financial security, it cannot guarantee it. Wealth can increase our insecurity. The more we have, the more we stand to lose. [108]

Our possessions also advertised our success and importance. By surrounding ourselves with the accoutrements of success, we hoped to trade the admiration, or envy of others, for the self-esteem we lacked.

However, our acquisitiveness furnished us with neither security or self esteem. The problem was that emotional security, and self-esteem, cannot be bought. Both are by-products of loving relationships. Furthermore, we tend to imagine that, to feel secure, we must control our environment, our circumstances, and others, whose lives mesh with ours. However, security is a result, not of control, but of relinquishment, relinquishment to the flow of life that throbs through the universe.

A Spiritual Presence

While those close to us, particularly our parents, or early caregivers, by loving us, help us feel secure and worthwhile, it is only when we encounter ourselves at depth, and encounter the Spirit Presence that embraces our souls, that security and self-esteem come to full flower.

This does not mean that there are not times when we feel threatened, or when we doubt our worth. It does mean, however, that these transient moods inevitably yield to a powerful internal bias that diminishes anxiety and assures us that we are worthy of respect.

Other Factors

Anxiety over security and self-esteem are not the only factors fueling our striving. We are also driven by an appetite for pleasure and stimulation. [109]

Pleasure

It has been argued that one major physiological drive influencing our behaviour is the desire to avoid pain and increase pleasure. The quest for security and self-esteem are an expression of this desire.

However, pleasure has a tendency to feed on itself. Once we have enjoyed something that is pleasurable, whether it be a good meal, a sexual encounter, or an experience of transcendence, we attempt to replicate it. We are bound to be disappointed, however, because most pleasurable experiences are serendipitous. The quest for self-pleasuring works against itself.

Life, in all its diversity, is to be enjoyed. The simple pleasures that come to us unbidden are far more enjoyable than synthetic substitutes. By living the present, without judgment and covetousness, we discover a delight in sheer being, a delight that is far superior to any form of self-pleasuring.

Stimulation

Stimulation is a form of pleasure. Some appear to need more stimulation than others. This is due to differences in personality, and to the degree to which we were stimulated when we were young.

When we are stimulated we feel alive. As we do with other pleasures, we seek to replicate stimulating experiences by reproducing the conditions that gave rise to them.

It is impossible to reproduce the past experiences. Like other pleasures, stimulation is serendipitous. Attempts at artificially stimulating ourselves are bound to be [110] disappointing. We may enjoy an artificial high, and we may be successful in giving others the impression that we are enjoying ourselves, but we know, deep down, that, while we may fool others, we can't fool ourselves.

There are special moments, in the course of a relatively humdrum existence, when we are stimulated. We may lose ourselves in the moment of intense creativity. We may be taken out of ourselves, transported by the experience of being at one with the universe. We may be overcome by another's love. Such experiences cannot be commanded. They happen when we are not anticipating them. Stimulation, driven by the desire for stimulation, is a poor substitute.

Nothing Wrong But!

There is nothing wrong with striving. It is part of an evolutionary dynamic. To survive we must strive. However, when striving is compulsive, it is unhealthy.

If we are striving because of the desperate need to control our circumstances, we end up being controlled by our need to control. The control mechanism jams in the "on" position.

Sometimes, excessive striving frustrates the goal it seeks to achieve.

Child psychologists recognise that there are stages in the infant's life when it becomes possible for them to make the transition from one way of thinking, or acting, to another, a transition that was not possible before they reached a certain stage in their development. This is often referred to as the "readiness" factor. In our concern with human development, social transformation, or scientific progress, we need to take account of timing, appropriateness and resources, that is, the [111] question of readiness. We can damage ourselves, and others, if we do not take account of this factor.

Striving tethers us to the future, and robs us of the ability to enjoy the present. Furthermore, when the future we have envisaged materializes, when it becomes the present, we cannot enjoy it because our ability to savour the present has atrophied.

We are the victims of a form of self-hypnosis. The fear that fuels our striving, disengages our capacity for self-criticism. This means that we do not question our behaviour, nor the assumptions that underlie it. In our desperation, we power on, assuming that the future will justify our compulsive striving. But this future never arrives.

The fact that others, like us, are also powering away, appears to confirm the virtue of our freneticism. Few raise questions about the madness of it all. We cannot afford to give voice to our doubts, because we have no alternative vision, no other cause for hope. We know no other way of living.

Our striving becomes a sort of cancer. It takes us over and destroys us, like an immune system attacking the body it is supposed to be protecting.

Western Prejudice

Westerners rarely recognise how Western they are. They have a tendency to consider themselves superior to others. After all, their society is more technologically developed.

Because of the striving built into the Western ethos, activity is regarded as a virtue in its own right. To be busy, to be occupied, and even to be stressed out because of one's busyness, is applauded. [112]

Furthermore, as a consequence of its emphasis on striving, the West regards the pursuit of economic progress to be more important than the nurturing of community. Governments, on coming to power, have seen themselves inheriting economies, rather than communities.

Obviously, without a healthy economy it is difficult to foster a sense of community. Nevertheless, when economic values predominate, they become disvalues.

One advantage, for governments, in focusing on economic indices, is that progress can be measured. Communal gains are less easily assessed, a critical issue for governments seeking re-election.

The third consequence of our inordinate striving is that we have created a monster. The engine of Progress is unstoppable. The structure of industrialized societies is so complex, and its elements so interconnected, that applying the brakes has almost become an impossibility.

A symptom of this emphasis on striving is the current preoccupation with "Mission Statements". One wonders how we survived before the advent of "Mission Statements"! While it is important for us to have some idea of what we want to accomplish, and for others to measure our achievements against our intentions, the formulation of mission statements, and our captivity to them, represents the pathological underside of our striving.

While some "Mission Statements" argue that their product will benefit society, they are generally expressions of the self-interest of the organizations generating them. [113]

Mission statements are objects of tyranny and ridicule. They subordinate the individual to the institution. They serve the interests, not of employees, who are pressured to fabricate or endorse them, but of the management. Even customers, or clients, whose interests these statements supposedly advance, take second place to managers, tempted by bloated bonuses, and shareholders.

A Balance

Can the West achieve a level of equilibrium, balancing its emphasis on effort in such a way as to insure that the dynamic created by our striving does not take over. Is it possible for us to moderate our striving? Can we temper its excesses?

The answer is yes. We can achieve a balance, particularly if we are willing to learn from the experience of the East.

The Eastern Pattern

Eastern philosophy, a reflection of meditative experience, views life as a gift, and encourages people to flow with its energies.

This "flowing with life" is not to be equated with inactivity, or quietude. The Eastern attitude is reflected in the Daoist notion of wu wei, or "non-activity".

In using this word, the Daoist in not suggesting that we withdraw from life, or its responsibilities. It refers, not to an absence of activity, but an avoidance of freneticism. It is suggesting that we should stop attempting to impose our will on life. Instead, we should develop an intuitive awareness of its inter-connections and energies. Aware that purposefulness is built into the natural world, we ought to [114] seek to discern our place in the scheme of things, and flow with this intuition. When we are able to flow with the Dao, with the intentionality that is part of the universe, we will find that less and less is done, until non-action is achieved. When this stage is reached, that is, when nothing is done, we will discover that nothing has been left undone.³⁷

To suggest that we flow with life is not to advocate hedonism, or abdication of responsibility. What is being proposed is an exercise in living simply. It involves openness to the intuitions of the Spirit that saturates the universe. This openness requires patience and a capacity for intuitive discernment.

It may mean asking the garden what shape it should take, negotiating relationships on the basis of an intuitive feel for energies and possibilities, creatively devising organizational structures by appraising possibilities latent in people, and circumstances, or deciding on the way we will approach a public presentation by descending first into the textures of the bodyself, and then, imaginatively, into the circumstances and souls of the people we will be addressing.

This active passivity is at variance with the compulsive striving that has taken over the West.

The Eastern approach, captured in the Dao De Jing, is also evident in Buddhism, with its stress on stilling the mind, and in Zen, a combination of Daoism and Buddhism, which suggests that if the archer is to become skilled she must become one with the bow.

The Benefits

The benefits of such an attitude are most clearly evident in great art and literature, in the deepest of relationships, in the [115] capacity to work without stress, and in the development of the gentle life. It is present also in those moments when we are gifted with inspirations that come to us fully developed, whether they are scientific theories, musical compositions, or novels.

It is also evident in human maturation. We cannot force our development. What we can do, because we are often confronted by factors that inhibit this development, is to free ourselves for growth, to allow inbuilt potential to unfold, like the petals of a rose.

Balance

What our world needs is a balance between the Western emphasis on effort and the Eastern stress on yieldedness. The marriage of these two elements will enable the West to avoid over-reaching itself in its striving. It will also address the pathological underside of the Eastern stress on flowing, a pathology which expresses itself in withdrawal, denial of responsibility and quietude.

Achieving a balance between Eastern and Western approaches requires sensitivity, understanding, discernment, and openness--openness to oneself, to others, to the community, to the situation, to the universe and to the Spirit that enlivens the universe. It is important for us to catch the currents of the wind, to ride the breath of the Spirit.

It is salutary for those of us who are Westerners to remind ourselves of Jesus comment that it is the meek, those of a gentle spirit, not those who strive to impose their will, who will inherit the earth.³⁸ [116]

[ROI 105-116]