When analysing setbacks, Westerners will immediately look for patterns to avoid in the future. If an employee suffers from excessive stress, was he leading a balanced life? If his back is hurting, is it because he had adopted an unbalanced posture?
In his works “Nicomachean Ethics” and “Eudemian Ethics,” Aristotle (384-322 BC) had called for leading a balanced life. He advised us to look for the golden mean and avoid extreme attitudes.
We should be generous, Aristotle said, but not to the extent of giving away everything we own and condemning ourselves to poverty. We should be courageous, he recommended, but not behave like daredevils that keep pushing their luck until they eventually get hurt.
Lao-Tzu wouldn’t have endorsed the Western conception of balance because it rests on a mathematical delusion. Aristotle’s concept of balance assumes that we can find the golden mean in all areas of life, but I doubt that anybody is able to do that.
I have never met anyone who has achieved a balanced situation in all areas of life, that is, in his health, personal finances, work and relationships.
Taoism and Aristotelian logic
Even for lucky individuals, there are always problems to be solved and obstacles to be surmounted. There is always room for improvement. The idea of achieving a balanced lifestyle is more an intellectual game than a workable, sustainable reality.
Aristotelian logic calls for imposing constraints, so that we can achieve a balanced lifestyle. If we are suffering from high stress, we should limit the factors that disrupt our peacefulness. If we are working too many hours, we should force ourselves to reduce them.
At the end of the process, the Aristotelian paradigm expects to deliver patterns where the quantities and numbers have been rearranged for the better. Fewer stressful events should lead to lower stress; few hours of work should lead to more relaxation, and so on.
However, when I look around, I fail to see confirmations of the validity of the Aristotelian paradigm. I fail to see morbidly obese individuals able to cut off their food intake and adopt a diet by the numbers. Nor do I see stressed individuals that have committed themselves to keeping disruptions at bay.
If number-driven lifestyle transformations exist, I wonder if they are statistically significant. If we are talking about a few thousand people per year on the whole planet, I wouldn’t view them as a solid endorsement of the Aristotelian paradigm.
A different conception of balance
Taoism looks for balance in the Tao, not in numbers. Nor does it endorse any particular lifestyle. Every individual should choose his own lifestyle, but it is in his interest to ensure that it is aligned with natural law.
Lao-Tzu lived two centuries before Aristotle, but in the Tao Te Ching, he already warned us against the fundamental sin of Aristotelian philosophy, namely, linearity.
Chapter 64 of the Tao Te Ching reminds us that we should handle problems quickly, but not too quickly because too much haste leads to failure. Similarly, if we attempt to grab too many items, we will end up dropping and possibly damaging them.
More pressure doesn’t necessarily lead to better results. Nor does more input necessarily lead to more output. Lao-Tzu was keenly aware of the lack of linearity in human action, and told us to proceed cautiously.
Neither Yang-Tzu nor Chuang-Tzu recommended us to look for a golden mean in any area of our lives. For Taoists, the concept of balance is individual, and typically asymmetric. It is something to be achieved by each individual without external help.
A deeper truth
Taoists aren’t surprised when they meet individuals who are happy with a lifestyle that everyone else considers extreme and unsustainable. Some people choose to work long hours. Others choose to practise sports every day. And others might prefer to devote their days to studying and praying.
For Lao-Tzu, every lifestyle choice is balanced as long as it complies with natural law. The Tao requires everybody to sleep and eat at regular intervals, but doesn’t prescribe the number of meals per day, the working hours, the hours of sleep, etc.
How do Taoists attain a balanced lifestyle? By grasping and accepting natural law. Chapter 64 of the Tao Te Ching depicts a wise person as someone who takes action by letting events run their course. If he intervenes, he will do it at the right moment and with minimum effort.
While the Aristotelian concept of balance is highly visible, I would not expect the uninitiated to perceive the Taoist balance. Lao-Tzu could recognize the hidden balance behind apparent disorder, even if nobody else was able to perceive it. Why? Because he had grasped that, in real life, balance will often be asymmetric.
For Taoists, the concept of looking for balance doesn’t make sense because they regard balance as a result, not as a cause. It is an automatic demonstration that natural law works every day in all circumstances, whether we like it or not.
Why do I categorize the Taoist balance as hidden? Because it is not immediately perceivable by our senses. It requires long training to look at problems and ask the right questions.
While Aristotelians keep looking for patterns, Taoists prefer to inspect the chain of actions and inactions, motivation, desire and personal preferences. Chances are that they will find clues leading to a truth deeper than what the eye can see.
If you are interested in applying effective principles to real-life problems in all sorts of situations, I recommend my book “The Philosophy of Builders.”