Think of the sea. Visualize it. It is one of the greatest forces that exists in the world, in the universe. And it’s just water…
You cannot control the sea. But you can learn to swim, to surf its waves, to navigate by taking advantage of the currents and adjusting the sails.
Now, realize that that sea is everything. Your life, everything around you is constantly influenced by forces that you cannot control. And if trying to control the sea only leads you to despair (and to drowning in it), controlling every aspect of your life might mean something very similar.
The Wu-Wei is a traditional Chinese philosophy that defends that the best way to deal with situations is “not to act”. But keep in mind that, in this particular philosophy, it is not the same “not to act” as “not to do anything at all”. Wu-Wei teaches how to do things naturally, without effort, without resistance, without confrontation. It is not about passiveness, but about finding the balance inside to achieve harmony in all aspects of our life. It is learning to adjust those sails with a slight movement, natural and almost imperceptible, and to get on the right course without the need to row to exhaustion against an unstoppable force.