Leo Babauta "The effortless life"

The need for success, and to be seen as an achiever, drives us to
do so much that’s unnecessary. We strive for a nice house, car,
clothes, gadgets, traveling the world, a prestigious job, a list of ac-complishments, a flock of online followers. To what end? To look good in the eyes of the world, when in truth the rest of the people
in the world are worried about themselves. Let go of the need for success, of the need for approval from others. We want to look good to our peers, sure, but relinquish this
as a driving force in our lives. Keep your feet on the ground. Find balance, find contentment.
Forget about “success.”

When people first hear of effortlessness, of giving up goals and expectations, of surrendering control, of doing less . . . they often have negative thoughts.
It’s against our cultural norms to do less—it’s considered lazy. We don’t like to be passive, it’s not an empowering word. We want to work harder, not merely sail through life. We want to achieve
more goals, not give them up.

In practice, this means letting go of fixed plans and routes. It means not having expectations of what a situation will be, or what its outcome will be. It means remaining flexible so that we can
adapt our actions—or non-actions—to the ever-changing situation, the unfolding moment.

Susan says she gives equal weight to every action, to every moment. We tend to do the opposite: certain things we do are more important than others and so we mentally focus on those and give
little thought to the smaller things.
Susan gives equal weight to meditating, working on an impor-tant project, talking with a stranger, walking to her car in the park-ing lot, eating a bowl of soup. None is more important than the
other. Even the space between things is given equal weight.

Practice being present in your next interaction with a friend or
loved one. Don’t worry about what has happened before, or what will happen later. Just enjoy being with that person, pay full atten-tion to that person, and be grateful you are in their presence.

Find something you love doing, that feels like play, and turn that into your job. That means you have to get really good at it — once you're really good, people will pay you. So play at the job,
perhaps on the side of your day job, and keep playing until you get good at it. The only way to get better is to do it.

Our lives aren’t effortless because we struggle through so much. But the struggle is entirely invented, lives entirely in our minds. We invent this struggle for many reasons: to give our lives
meaning, to give ourselves a feeling of accomplishment, to drama-tize our story (even if only in our own heads), or simply because this is the mode of thinking we’ve become used to.
Giving up the struggle isn’t always easy, but it is liberating. When you realize you don’t have to struggle with everything, life becomes so much more effortless.

A powerful realization that has helped me is simply this: You’re
already good enough, you already have more than enough, and you’re already perfect.
Try saying that to yourself, as corny as that might sound, just to see if it sounds true. Does it resonate as something you already be-lieve (in which case, you can probably stop reading now and start
writing), or does it not feel right? Do you feel like there are things you still need to improve?