Chapter 2: Not Forcing: Working With the Grain

The Bolt That Would Not Turn

Yohannes is thirty-eight and works as a mechanic in a small garage that repairs cars and vans. One Tuesday afternoon, he was replacing a part under an old delivery van when he came to a bolt that would not turn. It was rusted solid. He fitted his wrench and pulled. Nothing. He pulled harder. Nothing. He fetched a longer wrench for more force and threw his whole weight against it. There was a sharp crack. The bolt had snapped in half, leaving part of it stuck deep in the metal.

Yohannes swore. A job that should have taken twenty minutes now took three hours. He had to drill out the broken piece carefully, cut a new thread and find a replacement bolt. By the time he finished, it was dark, the customer was annoyed and Yohannes had a headache and a sore shoulder.

The next morning, the garage's oldest mechanic, a quiet man named Lennart who had been fixing vehicles for forty years, came over to see what had happened. He looked at the broken bolt and smiled. "You fought it," he said. "You cannot fight rust. You have to persuade it." He showed Yohannes what he would have done: soak the bolt in penetrating oil and wait, warm the metal gently, tap the bolt lightly to loosen the rust, try to turn it a little each way, wait again and only then apply steady, moderate force. "It takes longer at the start," Lennart said. "But it takes much less time in the end."

Yohannes thought about this for days. He realized that he approached many things the way he had approached the bolt. When something did not move, he pushed harder. When pushing harder did not work, he pushed harder still. Sometimes it worked. But often, as with the bolt, something broke: a tool, a relationship, his own patience or his health.

The Daodejing and the Zhuangzi have a word for what Lennart knew. In the classical Chinese of these books, it is wu wei, which is often translated as "non-action" or "doing nothing". But that translation is misleading. A better way to understand it, for our purposes, is "not forcing": acting in harmony with the way things are, working with the grain rather than against it. This chapter explores that idea, and a famous story about a cook whose knife never grew dull.

Doing Without Forcing

In chapter 37 of the Daodejing, there is a short line that has puzzled readers for centuries. In one common reading, it says: the Way never acts, and yet nothing is left undone (Daodejing, chapter 37). How can something never act, and yet leave nothing undone? It sounds like a riddle.

Think about how a plant grows. It does not strain or push. It does not make a plan or work late. Yet it grows, flowers and produces seeds. Or think about a river. It does not try to reach the sea. It simply follows the shape of the land, flowing downhill, and in time it reaches the sea and carves valleys through rock. Nature accomplishes enormous things without what we would call effort. It acts, but it does not force.

This is what wu wei means. It is not doing nothing. It is doing things in a way that follows their natural shape, so that effort meets as little resistance as possible. A person practising wu wei still acts, sometimes very energetically. But they act at the right time, in the right way, with the right amount of force, so that their action flows with the situation rather than fighting it. The result often looks effortless, though it may rest on great skill and attention.

In chapter 48 of the Daodejing, there is a related idea. In my own words: when you pursue learning, every day something is added. When you pursue the Way, every day something is dropped. Less and less is done, until you reach not forcing. When nothing is forced, nothing is left undone (Daodejing, chapter 48). This suggests that not forcing is not something we add to our lives, like a new technique. It is something we arrive at by letting go: of unnecessary effort, of strain, of the habit of pushing.

Chapter 63 offers a practical side of the same idea. In my own words: act without forcing. Deal with difficult things while they are still easy. Do great things while they are still small. The wise person never strives to do great things, and so great things are done (Daodejing, chapter 63). In other words, much of the forcing in our lives comes from waiting too long, until a small, easy task has become a large, difficult one. Acting early and lightly, when things are still easy, is a way of not forcing.

Cook Ding and the Ox

The most famous illustration of not forcing comes from chapter 3 of the Zhuangzi. It is the story of a cook named Ding, who was cutting up an ox for a ruler. As he worked, every movement of his hand, every lean of his shoulder, every step of his foot and every press of his knee was in perfect rhythm, like a dance to music. The ruler watched in amazement and said, "How wonderful! How can your skill reach such a level?" (Zhuangzi, chapter 3).

Cook Ding put down his knife and explained. What he cared about, he said, was the Way, which goes beyond mere skill. When he first began cutting oxen, all he could see was the whole ox in front of him. After three years, he no longer saw the whole ox. Now, he said, he met the ox with his whole attention rather than only with his eyes. He followed its natural structure, sliding his knife through the large gaps between the joints and guiding it along the natural openings. He never touched a ligament or a tendon, let alone a bone (Zhuangzi, chapter 3).

Then he made a remarkable comparison. A good cook, he said, changes his knife once a year, because he cuts. An ordinary cook changes his knife once a month, because he hacks. Cook Ding had used the same knife for nineteen years, and had cut up thousands of oxen with it, yet its edge was as sharp as if it had just come from the grindstone. The reason, he explained, was that there are spaces between the joints, and the blade of the knife has almost no thickness. When something with no thickness enters a space, there is more than enough room for it to move freely (Zhuangzi, chapter 3).

But Cook Ding did not pretend that every part of the work was easy. Whenever he came to a complicated place, where the joints were tangled, he saw the difficulty and became careful. He fixed his attention, slowed down and moved his knife very lightly. Then, suddenly, the parts came apart, like earth crumbling to the ground. He stood up, looked around, felt satisfied and wiped his knife clean. The ruler said that, by listening to Cook Ding, he had learned how to nourish life (Zhuangzi, chapter 3).

This story is full of meaning for people who try too hard. The ordinary cook hacks, forcing his way through bone and gristle, and his knife is ruined within a month. Cook Ding works with the natural structure of the ox, and his knife stays sharp for nineteen years. The knife is like our energy, our health and our spirit. When we hack our way through life, forcing every task, we wear ourselves out quickly. When we learn to find the natural openings, we can work for a very long time without being worn down. And when we meet a difficult place, the answer is not to hack harder, but to slow down, pay close attention and move lightly.

Imogen and the Words That Would Not Come

Imogen is twenty-seven and works as a writer for a company that produces guidebooks for walkers. She loves her work, but recently she has been struggling with a chapter about a long mountain trail. Every morning, she sits at her desk and tries to write. The words will not come. She stares at the screen, writes a sentence, deletes it, writes another and deletes that too. She stays at her desk for hours, determined to force the chapter out.

After two weeks, Imogen had written almost nothing and felt terrible. She was exhausted, frustrated and beginning to doubt that she could write at all. The harder she pushed, the more stuck she became. She was hacking at the chapter like the ordinary cook at the ox, and her knife, her creativity, was becoming dull.

A colleague, an older writer, suggested something that seemed strange. "Stop trying to write it," she said. "Go and walk part of the trail again. Look at it. Do not take notes. Just walk and look." Imogen thought this was a waste of time when she was already behind. But she was desperate, so she went.

On the trail, something happened. She noticed details she had forgotten: the way the path curved around a great rock, the smell of the pine trees after rain, a small stream that crossed the path at an unexpected point. She remembered why she had loved this walk. She did not write anything that day. But the next morning, when she sat down at her desk, the chapter began to flow. She wrote more in one morning than she had in two weeks.

Imogen had found the natural opening. Instead of forcing her way through the block, she had stepped back and let the material come to her. This is not a trick that works every time, and writing still requires effort. But Imogen learned that when she is stuck, the answer is often not to push harder at the same point, but to find another way in. "I was trying to cut through the bone," she says. "I needed to find the joint."

Imogen has since noticed that her best writing days share a pattern. They begin with a little time doing something else: a walk, a conversation, a few minutes of looking out of the window. Then the writing comes more easily. On days when she sits down at once and forces herself to start, she often struggles. She does not take long breaks, because she has deadlines. But she has learned that a short pause at the start of the day is not wasted time. It is like Cook Ding looking carefully at the ox before he begins to cut.

Kwaku and the Silent Teenager

Kwaku is forty-four and the father of a fifteen-year-old son, Ekow, who has become quiet and withdrawn over the past few months. Kwaku is worried. He wants to know what is wrong, so every evening at dinner he asks his son questions. How was school? Is something bothering you? Are you having problems with friends? Why are you so quiet? Ekow answers with one word or a shrug and leaves the table as soon as he can.

The more Kwaku asks, the more Ekow withdraws. Kwaku feels frustrated and even more worried. He has started to ask more questions, and more directly. Last week, he insisted that Ekow stay at the table until he explained what was wrong. Ekow stayed, but said nothing, and then shut himself in his room for the rest of the evening.

Kwaku's sister, who had raised three teenagers of her own, gave him some advice. "You are trying to pull the words out of him," she said. "Teenagers can be like a rusted bolt. The harder you pull, the tighter they hold. Stop pulling. Just be near him, doing something together. Let him come to you." She suggested that Kwaku invite Ekow to help him with a task, without any pressure to talk.

Kwaku was doubtful, but he tried. On Saturday, he asked Ekow to help him repair a broken fence in the garden. They worked side by side for two hours, mostly in silence, passing tools and holding planks. Near the end, while they were hammering the last nails, Ekow said quietly, "There is a boy at school who keeps making fun of me." Kwaku held back his urge to ask a dozen questions. He just said, "That sounds hard. Do you want to tell me about it?" And Ekow did.

Kwaku had found the natural opening, the space between the joints. Not by forcing, but by creating a situation in which his son could open up naturally. It is worth adding that if a parent is seriously worried about a young person who seems withdrawn, unhappy or at risk for a long time, it is wise to talk to a doctor, a school counsellor or another qualified professional. Kwaku did this too, and the school helped address the bullying. But the first step was to stop forcing and to make room.

Svetlana and the Hurried Garden

Svetlana is sixty and has an allotment, a small piece of land where she grows vegetables and flowers. When she first took it on, she was impatient. She wanted results quickly. She planted seeds too early in the spring, before the soil was warm, and many of them failed. She used large amounts of fertilizer to make plants grow faster, and some of them grew tall and weak and fell over. She watered too much, and some roots rotted.

An older gardener on the next plot watched her for a season and then offered some gentle advice. "You are trying to make the plants grow," he said. "But you cannot make them grow. You can only give them what they need and let them grow by themselves. The seed knows how to become a plant. Your job is to stop getting in its way."

Svetlana thought about this for a long time. She realized that she had been treating the garden as something to be forced, as she had treated many things in her working life as a manager. She began to change. She waited until the soil was warm before planting. She used less fertilizer and more compost, building the health of the soil slowly. She watered only when the plants needed it. She learned to watch the plants, the weather and the seasons, and to act in time with them.

Her garden became much more successful. The plants were stronger, healthier and more productive. And Svetlana found that gardening, which had been a source of frustration, became a source of peace. "In my working life, I thought everything depended on how hard I pushed," she says. "The garden taught me that some things grow best when you stop pushing and start paying attention."

Svetlana's garden is a perfect picture of the Daodejing's line: the Way never acts, and yet nothing is left undone. The seeds did not need to be forced. They needed the right conditions at the right time. Svetlana's work did not disappear. She still dug, planted, weeded and harvested. But her work now flowed with the nature of the garden, rather than against it.

Practical Steps: Finding the Joints

The first step is to notice when you are forcing. Signs of forcing include tension in your body, frustration, a feeling of pushing against resistance and, often, results that get worse the harder you try. When you notice these signs, pause. You may be hacking at the bone.

The second step is to stop and look more closely. Like Cook Ding at a complicated place, slow down and pay careful attention. What is the situation actually like? Where is the resistance coming from? Is there another way in? Often, the natural opening becomes visible only when we stop pushing and look.

The third step is to consider timing. Many things that cannot be done by force can be done at the right moment. A conversation that fails at dinner may succeed while fixing a fence. A chapter that will not come in the morning may come after a walk. A seed that fails in cold soil may thrive two weeks later. Ask whether this is the right moment, or whether waiting would help.

The fourth step is to deal with things while they are easy. As Daodejing 63 suggests, many difficult tasks were once easy, if they had been done earlier. Notice small tasks before they become large, and act on them lightly while they are still small. This prevents much of the forcing that comes later.

The fifth step is to use the right amount of force. Not forcing does not mean using no force at all. Lennart still turned the bolt, in the end. Cook Ding still cut the ox. The art lies in using exactly the force the situation needs, no more and no less, and in preparing the situation so that less force is needed.

The sixth step is to build skill patiently. Cook Ding's effortless work rested on nineteen years of practice. The ability to find the natural openings in any task grows with experience and attention. Be patient with yourself as you learn it. Each time you notice yourself forcing, and find a better way, you are sharpening your skill without wearing down your knife.

A seventh step, for some people, is to listen to those who have done the work longer. Lennart's forty years with rusted bolts, the older gardener's seasons on the next plot and Kwaku's sister's experience with three teenagers all held knowledge about where the natural openings were. Asking such people, and listening patiently, can save years of hacking.

Not Forcing Is Not Doing Nothing

It is worth saying again, clearly: wu wei does not mean doing nothing. The old translation "non-action" has led many readers to think that these books recommend passivity, laziness or withdrawal from the world. A careful reading shows the opposite. Cook Ding works with great energy and precision. The river carves valleys. The plants grow. Not forcing is a way of acting, not a way of avoiding action.

It is also worth noticing that not forcing often requires more skill, attention and patience than forcing does. It is easy to hack at an ox, pull at a bolt or push a teenager. It is much harder to find the joints, prepare the bolt or create a space for a conversation. Not forcing is not the lazy option. It is, in many ways, the more demanding one, because it asks us to understand what we are working with.

Some readers worry that not forcing will make them less productive. Often, the opposite happens. Yohannes, once he learned to prepare rusted bolts, finished jobs faster, not slower, because he stopped breaking things. Imogen wrote more after she stopped forcing. Svetlana's garden produced more after she stopped pushing it. Forcing feels productive, because it is tiring and dramatic. But tiredness and drama are not the same as results.

Finally, there are times when force is needed. If someone is in danger, you act immediately, without waiting for the perfect moment. If a deadline cannot move, you may need a burst of hard work. The Daodejing does not forbid effort. It suggests that effort should fit the situation, like a key fitting a lock, and that forcing should be the exception, not the habit of a whole life.

A Short Exercise: Where Are You Hacking?

This exercise helps you notice where you are forcing in your life and look for a natural opening. It takes about fifteen minutes.

Take a page and write down three situations in your life where you feel you are pushing against resistance. They might be at work, at home, in a relationship or in a personal project. For each one, write a sentence describing how you have been approaching it. For example: "Trying to finish the report by working later and later." "Asking my daughter the same questions every evening." "Forcing myself to exercise at six in the morning, when I always feel terrible."

Next to each situation, write what the resistance feels like. Is it tiredness? Silence? Frustration? Things breaking or going wrong? This is the bone your knife keeps hitting.

Then, for each situation, ask three questions, in the spirit of Cook Ding. Is there another way in? Is there a better time? Is there a lighter touch? Write any ideas that come, however small or strange they seem. "Do the hardest part of the report in the morning, when I am fresh." "Invite my daughter to cook with me instead of asking questions." "Try walking in the evening instead of running at dawn."

Choose one idea and try it in the coming week. Afterwards, write a few lines about what happened. Did the resistance change? Did the task flow more easily? When Yohannes did this exercise, his first situation was "rusted bolts", and his idea was "oil, wait, warm, tap, then turn". His second situation was "arguments with my brother about our father's care". His idea was "stop arguing on the phone in the evening; meet for breakfast on a Sunday and talk calmly". He says both worked better than he expected.

Chapter Summary

The Daodejing teaches wu wei, which is best understood here as not forcing: acting in harmony with the way things are, so that effort flows rather than fights. In one common reading of chapter 37, the Way never acts, yet nothing is left undone. Chapter 48 says that following the Way means dropping something every day until we reach not forcing, and chapter 63 advises dealing with difficult things while they are still easy. In chapter 3 of the Zhuangzi, Cook Ding keeps his knife sharp for nineteen years by following the natural joints of the ox, and slows down with great care at the difficult places.

Yohannes and the rusted bolt, Imogen and the words that would not come, Kwaku and his silent son and Svetlana in her garden all found that pushing harder against resistance often makes things worse, while finding the natural opening, the right moment and the right amount of force lets things move. Not forcing is not doing nothing. It is a demanding, skilful and patient way of acting, and it keeps our knife sharp.

In the next chapter, we will look at one of the most important truths for people who try too hard, stated plainly at the beginning of Cook Ding's chapter: life has a limit.