Huxley: Reversed Effort

Imagine you're lying in bed, staring at the ceiling, and you're desperately trying to go to sleep. You've been like this for hours, and so you shut your eyes, and you say to yourself, 'Go to sleep.' You force your body into some kind of relaxed state that surely sleep must come. But, of course, nothing happens. Sleep is something reserved for those who don't think about actually sleeping. This is an example of what Aldous Huxley calls the law of reversed effort, but it's found in many ancient traditions as well, such as Stoicism and Daoism. The basic idea is that, for some things, the more you try to do them, the more you will fail at them. To be good sometimes requires the ‘paradoxical art of doing and not doing, or combining relaxation with activity, of letting go, in order that some unknown quantity may take hold.’ If you have a mosquito bite, or a nosebleed, or a broken bone, you have to let it be because picking, and probing, and prodding will make the problem worse. And if you're riding a bike, or singing a song, or writing a book, or just having a great conversation with your friends, let it happen. Go with the flow. Because thinking about the what, or the why, or the how will break it. Sometimes our relationships, our jobs, and our hobbies demand an element of reversed effort, because thinking about the doing makes the doing feel weird, and it makes it feel difficult. So, when have you tried it? When have you tried to just let go of something and found yourself much better at it because of it?