The Harder You Force It, the Longer It Takes | Lao Tzu and the Law of Reversed Effort

"He who acts does harm; he who takes hold of a thing loses his hold." Lao Tzu, Tao Te Ching, chapter 64, in James Legge's 1891 translation. Most videos on this subject promise the same thing: stop trying, and what you want will come to you. The newest version credits the law of reversed effort to Lao Tzu. It is not his, and the texts say something colder and more useful. Forcing is not a moral failing or a cosmic law. It is a mechanism with parts - a watcher that checks on the doer, a weight that makes the hand clumsy, a push-back, a bill for what breaks, effort that comes late and large - and the parts explain why the forced thing takes longer, not just why it feels bad. In this video: the man of Song who pulled up his corn, and the man waiting by a stump; who really named the law of reversed effort; where "Nature does not hurry" comes from; the Guodian bamboo and Mawangdui silk; King Xiang's lost chariot race; Daniel Wegner's white bear; the ferryman and the gambler in the Zhuangzi; Cook Ding at the knot; Hundun's seven holes and the Marquis of Lu's seabird; Cao Can's folded hands; why the Huainanzi says wu wei is not sitting still; the ant's hole in the dike; a 1996 sleep study set to Sousa marches; William James on the "strenuously relaxed"; Woodworker Qing's fast; the swimmer at Lu-liang; and a farm manual that splits a field's work between people, earth and heaven. Persistent sleep problems deserve a professional, not a philosophy video. Quotations come from public-domain texts: Legge's Tao Te Ching and Chuang Tzu (1891), Herbert Giles's Chuang Tzu (1889), Legge's Mencius and Analects, Watters (1870), William James (1899), Mill (1873), Coue and Baudouin. Chinese texts with no public-domain English are given in rough renderings; modern works are paraphrased, bar a few phrases. Art credits in the pinned comment - every plate is a public-domain museum work. Asleep instead? The sleep cut of this thinker is on our sister channel, PhiloPsych Sleep:    • Nature's Pace Is Perfect | Lao Tzu's Philo...   CHAPTERS 0:00 The man of Song who helped his corn grow 1:54 Six parts of forcing, from watcher to clock 4:24 The stump-waiter and the ivory mulberry leaf 7:30 A learner's bicycle and the stone in the road 10:39 Who really named the law of reversed effort 13:20 'Nature does not hurry' and Legge's brackets 16:05 Guodian, 1993: the oldest copy, on bamboo 18:24 Yin Xi at the pass and the five thousand words 20:45 Mawangdui silk, Dunhuang and 4,999 characters 22:06 King Xiang's chariot race and the two hands 25:16 Wegner's white bear and the red Volkswagen 28:24 'Your mind was on me': why the king came last 30:31 The ferryman, the divers and the fear of water 32:53 Playing for counters, a buckle, then gold 35:20 Baumeister's chokers and Beilock's camera 37:38 A fighting cock that looks made of wood 39:12 Cook Ding's knife, and why he slows at the knot 41:45 Liezi on the cliff edge and the S-shaped putter 44:20 Not a flow state: 228 knives against one 46:43 Dong Ye Ji's horses and the hundred circuits 48:17 The tiptoe, the whirlwind, the forced surge 51:59 Penalty kicks, pendulums and the whip and goad 54:56 Hundun's seven holes, one bored a day 57:53 The Marquis of Lu's seabird, the duck and crane 1:00:32 Drilled into pretence: when the bill is a person 1:02:40 Half a day lost: the Han Feizi's arithmetic 1:04:10 Cooking a small fish without gutting it 1:06:43 The Qin fell; Cao Can sat with folded hands 1:09:41 'Kept them and lost nothing': Cao Can's song 1:11:56 Mencius at forty and the man who pulled corn 1:14:18 Why he pulled, and why the stump-waiter waited 1:17:11 The Huainanzi: wu wei is not sitting still 1:19:51 Yu loses a shoe racing to catch the moment 1:21:25 An ant's hole in a dike, and chapter 63 1:23:46 The harder, the longer: the title as mechanism 1:25:30 The thousand li that begins beneath the feet 1:27:18 Why things are ruined on the eve of success 1:28:44 Three years for one leaf, and Confucius on haste 1:30:51 Sousa marches and the race to fall asleep 1:33:27 Coue's sleeper, Confucius's night, a watched pot 1:36:17 Frankl's paradoxical intention, put to the test 1:38:03 Mill, Stravinsky and trying to be happy 1:40:23 Maude Royden and the will that hears the order 1:41:52 Held by the effort to be empty: Han Fei's catch 1:43:55 William James and the paradox of wu wei 1:45:46 Xunzi's scorched palm and Confucius at seventy 1:47:50 Easy shoes, and 'take away, and take away again' 1:50:49 Woodworker Qing's fast and the golfers' rulebook 1:54:05 The swimmer at Lu-liang and Wheelwright Bian 1:57:08 Muddy water clears slowly: chapter 15 1:59:47 Chapter 8's water, the tongue and the teeth 2:02:21 The useless tree and the goose that dies 2:04:35 Tolstoy, Bai Juyi and the book's last verb 2:07:40 The farm manual and the grower's share 2:10:12 One English word for the farmer and the sage PhiloPsych Wake - philosophy and psychology, made cinematic. #LaoTzu #Taoism #TaoTeChing #WuWei #Psychology