9

Fill your bowl to the brim
and it will spill.
Keep sharpening your knife
and it will blunt.
Chase after money and security
and your heart will never unclench.
Care about people’s approval
and you will be their prisoner.

Do your work,
then step back.

…is the way (tao) that tian works.

Tao Te Ching by Lao Tsu, Trans. by Stephen Mitchell

Many years ago when (when I was young) I was employed by Monsanto Chemical Company. Monsanto was a St. Louis company. Monsanto no longer exists as it was “gobbled up” by Bayer AG, a German pharmaceutical and biotechnology company. Hired as a lab tech I remember the first day or so of my orientation, when word of advice was offered by my supervisor: “To keep your job here, you must be able to walk down the hall with a full cup of coffee.” The off handed comment highlighted the crucial element of human, social interaction to the success of the projects that I would be invited to assist with. A day at the lab began with hot coffee and a meeting to talk over the goals for the day.

The pragmatic extension of that descriptive comment: learn to draw a cup of coffee that leaves some empty margin at the top of the cup. Then, and only then is one able to fluidly move with a “full” cup – nothing spills over.

That comment stands in memory alongside other recollections of the mutual support which was given and received by scientists, engineers, and techs at the lab where we worked. Expanded into a generalized philosophy of life, a similar kind of idea is advanced by a Chinese tradition of thought conveyed in this ancient text. There’s a point beyond which, the outcome is self-defeating, spillage, wasted coffee staining the floor. How much is “enough”? That’s a matter of judgment. No one other than yourself can know when you’ve done enough, gone far enough, done your best under the circumstances.

What are the consequences of desire for more and more and more? Then you become “locked in” to the diminishing returns of excess. There’s never “enough.” This is not limited to a psychological state of mind either. Nature takes every extreme to a reversal of direction.

What goes up must come down.

Note: I took liberty with the last line of Mitchell’s translation to express a more literal rendering of the Chinese text: this is heaven’s (天) way (道) .