You’ve felt it before. That weird, nagging friction when you try to force a project to finish early or try to make someone like you who clearly doesn't. It’s exhausting. We spend a lot of our lives fighting against the grain, but the truth is, the natural way of things usually wins in the end. Whether we’re talking about biological circadian rhythms, the slow decay of abandoned buildings, or just the basic physics of "what goes up must come down," there is an underlying rhythm to existence that doesn't care about your Google Calendar.
It's about flow.
Humans have spent centuries trying to engineer our way out of nature's constraints. We have lightbulbs to kill the night. We have refrigerated trucks to ignore the seasons. But even with all that tech, your body still craves the sun, and your brain still needs the downtime. Ignoring the natural way of things isn't just a philosophical mistake; it's a recipe for burnout and systemic collapse.
The Tao and the Concept of Wu Wei
When people talk about the natural way of things, they often stumble into Taoism without realizing it. Lao Tzu, the ancient Chinese philosopher, spoke at length about Wu Wei. It’s often translated as "inaction," but that’s a bit of a mistranslation. It’s more like "effortless action." Think of a river. The water doesn't "try" to flow downhill. It just does. It finds the path of least resistance. It carves canyons not through brute force, but through persistence and by following the terrain.
Modern life is the opposite of Wu Wei.
We push. We grind. We "hustle."
But look at how things actually grow. A tree doesn't grow faster because you yell at it or pull on its branches. It follows a specific genetic and environmental blueprint. It needs time, nutrients, and the right season. When we ignore these timelines in our own lives—expecting a brand-new business to be profitable in thirty days or expecting to recover from surgery in a weekend—we aren't being "productive." We're being delusional.
Why Biological Rhythms Rule Your Life
Your body is a walking clock. This isn't some New Age metaphor; it’s literally Nobel Prize-winning science. In 2017, Jeffrey C. Hall, Michael Rosbash, and Michael W. Young won the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine for their discoveries of molecular mechanisms controlling the circadian rhythm. They proved that almost every cell in your body has its own little timepiece.
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When you stay up until 3:00 AM staring at a blue-light screen, you aren't just "tired." You are actively fighting the natural way of things at a cellular level.
Your liver expects to process toxins at a certain time. Your brain expects to flush out metabolic waste (via the glymphatic system) while you sleep. When you disrupt this, your insulin sensitivity drops, your cortisol spikes, and your decision-making gets sloppy. You can drink all the espresso you want, but you can't negotiate with your DNA. The biological "tax" for ignoring the natural way of things always comes due.
Entropy: The Universe’s Favorite Rule
If you leave a brand-new car in a field for fifty years, it doesn't get better. It doesn't stay the same. It rusts. It falls apart. This is the Second Law of Thermodynamics, or entropy. Basically, things tend to move from order to disorder.
The natural way of things is toward decay and reorganization.
This sounds depressing, but it's actually quite beautiful if you look at it from a distance. In a forest, a fallen log isn't a failure. It’s a buffet for fungi, beetles, and moss. That decay is the prerequisite for new growth. In our personal lives, we tend to view the "end" of things—the end of a career, a relationship, or a phase of life—as a catastrophe. In reality, it’s just the entropy required for the next stage of the cycle.
Resistance to this process is where most of our suffering comes from. We try to keep things exactly as they are. We want the "honeymoon phase" to last twenty years. We want our favorite neighborhood bar to never change its menu. But the natural way of things is constant flux. Heraclitus, the Greek philosopher, famously said you can't step into the same river twice. The water is different, and you are different.
The Problem with "Linear" Thinking
Most of our modern world is built on the idea of linear growth. Stocks should go up forever. GDP should increase every quarter. You should be more successful this year than you were last year.
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But nature is cyclical, not linear.
- Seasons: Winter is a period of dormancy, not "failure."
- Forest Fires: Many ecosystems, like the giant sequoia forests in California, actually require fire to clear out the underbrush and allow seeds to germinate.
- The Moon: It waxes and wanes. It doesn't just stay full all the time.
When we try to force a linear "up and to the right" trajectory onto a cyclical world, things break. This is why we see "burnout culture." If you try to live in a perpetual "summer" of high productivity, you eventually run out of soil nutrients. You need a winter. You need to lie fallow.
Psychological Resistance and the "Should" Trap
Kinda funny how we think we're so smart, yet we’re the only animals that try to convince ourselves we aren't part of nature. A dog doesn't feel guilty for napping in the sun. A bird doesn't feel like a "failure" because it didn't migrate fast enough.
We, however, have the "Shoulds."
"I should be further along by now."
"This project should be easier."
"People should be nicer."
The "should" is a rejection of the natural way of things. It’s an attempt to overlay a human-made fantasy onto reality. Honestly, most of the stress we feel isn't from the events themselves, but from our resistance to the events. If it’s raining, it’s raining. You can be mad at the rain, you can cry about the rain, or you can get an umbrella. The rain doesn't care. The natural way of things is that clouds release moisture when they reach saturation. Your opinion of that process is irrelevant to the physics of it.
Resilience Through Alignment
There’s a concept in Japanese aesthetics called Wabi-sabi. It’s about finding beauty in imperfection and the natural cycle of growth and decay. It’s why a cracked ceramic bowl repaired with gold (Kintsugi) is seen as more beautiful than a perfect one. It acknowledges the history and the "way of things."
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True resilience isn't about being "tough" or "unbreakable." It’s about being flexible. In a hurricane, the rigid oak tree often snaps, while the willow tree bends and survives. The willow is aligned with the natural way of things—it accepts the wind instead of fighting it.
Actionable Insights: How to Stop Fighting the Grain
You can't change the laws of the universe, but you can change how you navigate them. If you feel like you're constantly swimming upstream, here are a few ways to realign with the natural way of things:
1. Audit your "Seasons"
Look at your current project or life phase. Are you in a planting phase (hard work, no visible results), a harvest phase (maximum output, high energy), or a fallow phase (rest, reflection)? Stop trying to harvest when you should be resting. If you're exhausted, your body is telling you it's winter. Listen to it.
2. Watch the "Micro-Friction"
Pay attention to where you are forcing things. If a conversation feels like pulling teeth, or if a specific task feels inherently "wrong" in your gut, stop. Ask yourself: "Am I fighting the natural way of things here?" Sometimes the path of least resistance is actually the right path, not the "lazy" one.
3. Respect the 90-Minute Rule
Human energy doesn't work in 8-hour blocks. We have ultradian rhythms. Research suggests our brains can focus intensely for about 90 to 120 minutes before needing a break. Instead of trying to "power through" a four-hour session, work with your biology. Take twenty minutes to stare at a tree or walk around. You'll get more done in the long run because you're working with your hardware, not against it.
4. Practice Radical Acceptance
This doesn't mean being passive. It means acknowledging the facts. "The facts are that I am tired, the market is down, and this car won't start." Once you accept the natural state of the moment, you can make a logical plan. If you spend all your energy being angry that the car won't start, you have no energy left to fix it.
5. Spend Time in Unmanaged Nature
The best way to remember the natural way of things is to see it in action. Go somewhere where humans haven't mowed the grass or paved the trails. Watch how the chaos of a forest actually creates a perfect, self-sustaining system. It’s a reminder that order doesn't always have to be forced; sometimes, it emerges on its own when we get out of the way.
The natural way of things isn't a set of rules meant to limit you. It's the underlying architecture of the world. When you stop fighting it, you don't just become more "at peace"—you actually become more effective. You stop wasting energy on the impossible and start using the existing currents of life to get where you need to go. It’s the difference between rowing a boat against the tide and finally putting up a sail.