If Wu Wei Is Just 'Going With The Flow,' Why's It So Hard?
The paradoxical nature of it points at the very reason
Hi all, my name’s Paddy Murphy. I’m a humanist counselor and writer from Ireland, living in Poland. I’m fascinated by where the blurry line is between psychology and spirituality, so that’s mostly the area I write about.
I’ve got a Substack newsletter, and I publish five articles every week for free (of course, you can pay if you’d like to).
Monday-Wednesday - Spirituality/Psychology.
Thursday - A short story.
Friday - “Good News Friday,” a round-up of the good news stories over the last week.
Today, though, I want to look at the paradoxical nature of Wu Wei, that great cornerstone of Taoist philosophy/spirituality. I hope you enjoy the article.
Wu wei.
Two wee syllables, soft as a rumored rustle through rushes, and yet it’s enough to confound your average overcaffeinated productivity guru into a frothing existential naval-gazing session.
If this so-called “non-doing” is meant to be easy, why does it feel like pulling teeth with a tuning fork? Why does relaxing feel like death warmed up when you’ve spent your life chasing tail-lights and to-do lists?
Because, dear reader, wu wei isn’t just “going with the flow.” It’s becoming the flow. And that’s not something you can workshop, whiteboard, or bloody well monetize, though plenty have certainly tried.
The Tao doesn't sell online courses. But, if it did, you can be sure the checkout till wouldn’t open and accept payment.
First: what the hell is it?
It ain’t idleness. It ain’t sloth. And it sure as sin isn’t that half-arsed, soy-latte version of surrender preached by burnt-out tech bros who fled to Bali after tax authorities started digging into their accounts.
Wu wei is the art of doing without doing. Action without friction. Deed without the stench of desperation. Like a cat landing on all fours, or your grandmother making stew without a recipe, every movement precise, yet not one ounce of strain.
It’s the opposite of micromanaging your own existence. It’s nature operating as itself, unbuggered by your anxious flustering and fiddling.
Why’s it so bloody difficult?
Because we, the noble fools that we are, or at least think that we are, are addicted to interfering.
To control. To pluck at the strings of our petty little puppeteered lives. We're like souped-up drunks looking up at the starry sky and trying to steer them, hollering instructions at the moon in the co-pilot seat.
We don’t trust the current of the river, because we’re afraid of where it might take us. And so we row. Row, row, row your boat, row against the flow.
We row with bleeding and callused hands and call it virtue. And when the boat flips, we blame the river, call in the lawyers, and try to sue it.
The paradox? The more you strive for effortlessness, the more you make a pig’s ear of it. It's like trying to be spontaneous with a checklist. Like scheduling an epiphany for next Thursday, sometime between the dog’s vet appointment to have his ears waxed and the eldest kid’s karate lesson would be optimal.
Your ego wants no part in this
God bless its sweaty little mitts, the ego wants to “achieve” wu wei. It wants credit for surrender. It wants to humblebrag its way into enlightenment with a LinkedIn post, a smug grin, and maybe even a Udemy course.
But the Tao, you already know this, don’t you, cannot be captured. Not in language, not in strategy, not even in curvy Instagram captions with cherry blossoms and fake Lao Tzu quotes.
It mocks your schemes. It dashes your formulas. It whispers, “Cease.” And then, it flows on regardless.
The way I see life now, I tell myself that I’m not the author. I’m the ink. And the Tao’s pen has no master.
“Grindset” meet Tao-set
Let us pause for a moment to address the cult of hustle, the 21st-century apostles, monks, and nuns of burnout, those weary-eyed prophets of YouTube, complete with ring-lights-reflected-in-their-pupils, manifestation vision boards, and sleep deprivation.
To them, wu wei is heresy.
You mean don’t optimize your mornings like a military operation? You mean don’t crush it, kill it, hack it, slay it, scale it, or whatever testosterone-addled verb is trending?
No. You don’t crush the moment. You coincide with it. You meet the world as it is, not as your marketing deck says it ought to be.
The Tao doesn’t hustle. It meanders and wanders and rambles with the sublime confidence of a drunk poet who knows he’ll still end up exactly where he needs to be.
How to not-do wu wei (badly)
Try this tonight.
Lie on your back and attempt to “let go.” Really go for it. Grip your jaw. Frown. Yell “I am letting go!” at the ceiling like the absolute lunatic you know you are. Observe how your very effort gums up the gears of grace.
You cannot will yourself into spontaneity. You cannot schedule surrender. Wu wei arrives when the scaffolding of the studiously structured self collapses. When the actor forgets the role and becomes the character. When the dancer disappears, and only the dance remains.
And no, try as you might, you can’t fake it, either. The Tao sees through performance the way a flame sees through paper.
What does it look like, then?
It looks like:
The blacksmith who’s forged so long he no longer thinks, only swings.
The child who builds a sandcastle, then laughs when it falls.
The lover who listens instead of preparing their next quip.
The heron that lands without calculation, and startles nothing.
It’s not about doing nothing. It’s about nothing doing you. It’s a surrender so complete that even the word surrender dies of embarrassment.
So why bother?
Because the alternative is madness.
Because the cult of self-exertion will wring you dry and call it success.
Because if you don't unshackle yourself from the tyranny of effort, you will die measuring your worth in imaginary metrics, chasing horizons that recede as you approach.
Wu wei is not a technique.
It’s a remembering. A peeling away. A coming home to the strange and ancient rhythm that was there before you even had a name.
And here’s the greatest paradox of them all: while you were brooding for it, the Tao, like silence, was never absent. You simply couldn’t hear it beneath the bluster and blathering of your bewildered brain.
I’m Paddy Murphy — a counselor, teacher, and writer with over twenty years of experience helping people face the world without losing their soul. If this piece stirred something in you — if you’re tired of being told to switch off your feelings in order to keep up — I can help you reconnect with what matters. Not as a guru. Not as a brand. Just as someone who believes empathy is still worth fighting for.
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