This article by Mark Manson comes straight from his blog and discusses an interesting idea called backward law that Mark talked about in his bestseller The Subtle Art of Not Giving A Fuck and that I recently talked about in my last blog post. „Retrograde law” [is] the idea that the more you strive to feel better all the time, the less satisfied you become, because pursuing something only reinforces the fact that you lack it in the first place. The more desperately you want to be rich, the poorer and more unworthy you feel, no matter how much money you actually make. The more desperately you want to be sexy and desired, the more ugly you see yourself, regardless of your actual physical appearance. The more desperately you want to be happy and loved, the more lonely and anxious you become, no matter who is around you. The more you want to be spiritually enlightened, the more self-centered and superficial you become when you try to get there.â Mark Manson, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a Fuck Retrograde law is about recognizing that the more you pursue something, the more you end up getting the opposite result or feeling worse than before. This is somewhat counterintuitive to what we have been told throughout our lives. For most of our lives, we have been told that the harder we work and the more we try, the better off we will be. But Mark explains how this applies to menial tasks, but not to psychological actions like our mental health and relationships. But the backward law is not so much about worldly achievements – on the contrary, it transcends them.
It`s about getting what we really want, really. This is the shortcut to the Holy Grail; the thing we are all looking for; The goodie. Is it wealth? Is it love? Is it friendship? Is it a long and healthy life? Even if such things are pleasant; These are just cheap imitations of the real thing. These are the things that we believe will lead us to what we are looking for. But, as the retrograde law makes clear, the more we search, the less we find. The more we chase after these external circumstances, the further we will be from what we really want. So what do we want? Do we long for happiness? And if so, what is happiness? Is it something we acquire through things like love and material goods? According to Alan Watts, we don`t know what we really want because we can`t define it. I quote: Being aware of how retrograde law works does not mean that we should never set goals, never have ambitions or never seek change. There are probably an infinite number of reasons why we should make a change and not accept the status quo.
However, backward law teaches us not to be deceived by the idea that the pursuit of happiness leads to happiness. Quite the contrary. And with this knowledge, we are able to enter this state of happiness of „not wanting” a little more often. Because, as Alan Watts said, „the mystery of life is not a problem that needs to be solved, but a reality that needs to be lived.” If we stop trying to be happy, we will be happy because there is nothing we need but what is. If we stop trying to be rich, we will live in abundance because we are happy with what we have, and anything that goes beyond that is a bonus. Therefore, the only way to get what we want is not to want it. And that`s what backward law teaches us. There is a Zen story that illustrates this paradoxical idea by explaining how we can purify murky water. The difficult human situation is a collective deception that tells us that the realization of external things or the change of external circumstances, from objects to money, to the adaptations of the body to changes in scene, will fundamentally free us from our sense of lack. The retrograde law shows us that the opposite is true. We feel deficient because of our dissatisfaction with the current circumstances.
The greater our dissatisfaction, the more we suffer. The more change we need to be satisfied, the less satisfied we are. Imagine that you have set a goal for yourself, that is, you want to become a millionaire and you believe that it will make you happy. So, if we want to stop thinking about the pink elephant, in this case, the paradoxical solution is to abandon our fight and let our „desire to get rid of it” dry. Instead of trying to forcibly remove the elephant from our thoughts, we let it disperse on its own and leave it alone. Well, how exactly does this retrograde law work in practice? Or more precisely, how do we get exactly what we want by not trying to get what we want? This article examines the backward law and its paradoxical nature, as well as the cause of our persistent dissatisfaction in life and how we can free ourselves from it. Ironically, the more we try to be less dissatisfied, the more we become dissatisfied. Could it be, then, that this tendency to be so interested in freeing ourselves from dissatisfaction, in trying to be happy, in trying to be satisfied, is exactly why we are not? Here we see the paradox of will, which is the basis of the „law of reverse effort”, also called „backward law” by the philosopher Alan Watts. Retrograde law suggests that the more we pursue something, the more we realize the opposite of what we really want, and the more disappointed we feel. Or to put it simply, the more we try, the less likely we are to succeed. On the other hand, if we stop trying, we will have what we want. C.
Godwin, „Rules of Procedure” in F. M. Martin and K. Murray (eds) Children`s Hearings (Scottish Academic Press, 1976) S.