Anyone trying to dominate you is by definition making distinctions and going against the Way. Weakness, as the Laozi uses the term, is on the contrary based upon connecting, sensing, and working disparate elements: this is where its power lies. Those who would take all under Heaven and make it theirs, I see that this will be in vain. All under

Like a sapling or a blade of grass, they are soft and supple because they are still so close to the Way. But as time passes, they become more rigid and differentiated from everything else.

There’s the “rational choice” model:

We achieve the best outcomes when we think of things in terms of long-term trajectories. The most expansive decisions come from laying the ground so things can grow.

potential for goodness.

We are capable of not just understanding connections but also making new ones to generate entirely new realities and new worlds. Being the architects of these worlds is how we become powerful.

Note that paying attention to your emotional responses is not the same as “mindfulness,” the popular notion that is based loosely on the Buddhist idea of detachment and nonjudgment. It is not about observing your feelings, accepting them, and then letting them go so that you can achieve a sort of personal peace.

The legend of Laozi as not just a sage but also a god who generated the Way is not as fantastical as it might seem. The Way does not exist in some natural, unchanging order that we must find and harmonize with. Rather, as Laozi shows us, we form the Way by actively weaving together everything around us. Each of us has the potential to become a

Although Confucius’s focus is not on one’s own happiness, he was intimately familiar with the deep happiness that comes from striving to become a better human being. When asked to describe himself, he replied: “He is a person who is so impassioned that he forgets to eat, who is so joyous that he forgets to be worried, and who grows into old age