The Dao of Success #030

Are losers better off?

Hello and welcome to Every Dawn. I sometimes think, like everybody does probably, about fame, success, becoming famous with these YouTube videos, having success, being able to make a living from them, perhaps in the future. And often, I find myself striving for this, not as I should perhaps, or to educate, but to actually have success doing it, being successful.

But this, as we know, if you look at YouTubers who are successful and they're quitting big numbers recently, you know, in the past year, many of the big YouTubers have quit or have paused their channels because they find that this life is not fulfilling enough, and they want to do something else with their lives.

And so, when somebody like me sees these people with 1 million views and they quit, I tend to think, "How stupid of them. They are exactly where I want to be." But the interesting thing is that when you are there, obviously, this is not a place that you want to be. So perhaps, people like me, beginners in YouTube, should take this more seriously, this hint that it's not where you want to be.

I was thinking of the Dao because the Dao De Jing, you know, the book of the way, the Chinese classic, has a statement about just this, and I will read it to you. One moment. The Dao says, in Chapter 9, "It is better to leave a vessel unfilled than to attempt to carry it when it's full."

So let's pause here for a moment. This is a beautiful picture, right? Because it's better to leave your vessel unfilled than to attempt to carry it when it's full. A full vessel is difficult to carry; it will fall down, it will break, it will spill. It's better to leave it unfilled, and then it's easy to carry.

"If you keep sharpening a point that has been sharpened, the point cannot long preserve its sharpness. If you make something sharp and then you keep touching it where it's sharp, it will not be sharp anymore. It's only sharp if you don't touch it after you sharpen it. Essentially, sharpening something, sharpening a knife, is somehow self-defeating because after you sharpen it, if you actually make use of it, it will lose its sharpness again."

"When gold and jade fill the hall, their possessor cannot keep them safe. The more gold you have, the more things you have, the more difficult it becomes to keep them safe. When wealth and honors lead to arrogance, this brings its evil on itself. When the work is done, and one's name is becoming distinguished, to withdraw into obscurity is the way of heaven."

And I think the Dao has found the deep wisdom there, because what it says is that actually, it is much easier in life to not be recognized. It's much easier to be obscure, to live your own life, to find happiness in everyday things but not to be famous because fame is actually a big burden. Money is a burden because it can be stolen. A full vessel is a burden because it cannot be transported. Fame is a burden because it forces you to keep doing the things you're famous for, it limits you, you cannot easily change what you are doing, you have to keep doing this thing.

And this is what all these big YouTubers experience as limiting, as making their lives difficult, making their lives not being worth it anymore. And when are we most happy? When we do something, we are most happy at the beginning of it.

I am most happy now because I'm free in this YouTube game. I can talk about whatever I like. I can talk about the Dao, I can talk about Epicurus, I can talk about the Stoics. It's my choice. If I was famous for one thing, let's say if I was Mr. Beast, then I would have to be Mr. Beast every single week. I would have to produce more and more videos for exactly this audience, having exactly the same tropes in them, having exactly the same structure so that this audience is satisfied. And if I did not manage this, then my numbers would drop, and I would panic, and my whole livelihood and my employees would all be gone, and my life would be destroyed, right?

While right now, nobody cares what I'm doing. I can do whatever I like. So I think this is also one of the secrets of children, actually: that they can play so freely and with so much satisfaction because, of course, they are not worried all the time. A child's play does not have consequences in their real life; they can do whatever they like, nobody cares, and this gives them enjoyment from the play.

So I think this is an important insight that we should perhaps keep in mind. And as we go about our day, we should not always look at our lives in relation to some future big status, big event, big thing happening, but we should celebrate our lives as they are now, and especially if we are obscure, especially if we are not well-known. We should perceive this as a good thing: it's a thing that frees us, that allows us to have fun without being restricted by the expectations of a big audience.

And the same is true of your world of work. It's not only YouTubers, you know. In an office also, if you're the boss, you have a lot more responsibility, you have a lot more things to take care of. Yes, you earn more money, you have more power, but you also have all these responsibilities, and you have all these restrictions, and you have all these demands on your time and your attention. The lower you are in a hierarchy, the more fun you can have. I personally experience it because, you know, at my age, I could have been a department head or something like this at a university, but instead, I'm just a normal lecturer, but I find this freeing now. For a long time, I thought this is, you know, unjust, or I'm not treated well, or I have a bad lot in life because I'm only a lecturer, but now I get to enjoy it because I see how much work it is to be a department head, how much work it is to be a chair professor of something, and how enjoyable my life is because I can afford to make these videos, for example. I can spend hours making these videos. Nobody cares, as long as I'm teaching my classes. This is great.

And this is the result of not being so successful. So perhaps we should revisit our goals and see that being the biggest number in the game, being the biggest fish in the pond, is not always what we really want. Sometimes what we want is obscurity, and sometimes, you know, as the Dao says, "To withdraw into obscurity is the way of Heaven."

Thank you and see you next time. Bye-bye.