We worry that we might lose face or a job, a mate or a healthy body, a financial fortune or our very lives. We struggle to get and fear to lose, and thus are never at ease. When we act from anxiety, which is another way of saying when we fear to lose, we are never at our best.
Anxiety brings hesitation and desperation, and both confound action. Wu-wei is easy, unforced action, not laziness and passivity. To block action on an inspiration or intuition with the hesitation or paralysis of self-conscious thinking is missing the spirit of wu-wei every bit as much as pushing or forcing a result. Spontaneous easy action is free of ulterior motives and attachment to results. It walks without leaving tracks, leads without force, achieves without leaving a mark.
Laurence G. Boldt
Source: The Tao of Abundance
by Laurence G. Boldt
©1999 Laurence G. Boldt
Penguin Compass