7 Secrets to Life by Lao Tzu

An ancient recipe for sustainable peace

Unpopular opinion: A peaceful life can be sustained.

In my search for philosophical perspectives to help me improve my life, the words of Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu (600 B.C.) have always stood out from the rest.

They were concise and on point, as well as thought-provoking.

His wisdom has helped me to avoid unnecessary suffering, as well as improve the quality of my life.

So today I’d like to share with you 7 incredible pieces of life advice by Lao Tzu, and these are:

1. Focus on being yourself, and avoid comparing
2. Avoid getting trapped in other people’s opinions
3. Give life to the ideas by practicing them
4. Realise that your mind leads your life
5. Let go to receive
6. Observe others, but discover yourself
7. Make space to become who you wish to become

Lao Tzu lived thousands of years before our time, but his words have been a source of wisdom for millions of people who wanted to improve their lives.

So I hope they’ll be as inspiring for you as they have been for all these past generations.

#1-Focus on being yourself, and avoid comparing

In our modern lives, it is easier than ever to compare yourself to others.

Even if it is not in person, we can go online, and easily get into a state of mind where we measure our value only through comparison. Maybe we think this will help us to get a true understanding of what we are expected to be, but it is a trap that leads one into self-sabotage and prevents us from seeing our true value.

Sure, we can admire some qualities in others, and this can help us to adapt these things into our lives, but comparing who you are today, to someone else’s unique circumstances, usually leads to the creation of insecurities.

Lao Tzu’s advice on this matter is to learn to be content being yourself and understand that true respect is not for the better but for the one who is content with being themselves.

So instead of comparing ourselves to others, we can improve ourselves through working on becoming the best version of ourselves and as a result be respected truly.

#2-Avoid getting trapped in other people’s opinions

Humans are social beings, and one way or another, we can’t help but be affected by the expectations of others. And even though it is a nice feeling to be approved of, it is also a dangerous game to play.

This is because once we start caring about what others think of us, we give them the power to control our own perceptions of who we are.

That’s why Lao Tzu advises to not be trapped in other people’s opinions. He says that to care what other people think of you will take away your freedom to be who you are.

So it is essential to avoid this and prevent becoming trapped in the opinions of others.

#3-Give life to the ideas by practicing them

One of the topics frequently discussed within the self-help community is to feel like you are improving your life just by learning about these methods but in actuality, unless one puts them into practice, we are not really benefited by them.

In this subject, Lao Tzu’s advice is to realize that knowledge is a locked treasure, and only with practice, it can be truly be unlocked.

So it is important to avoid letting wisdom only exist within our memory, and give life to it by practicing it.

#4-Realise that your mind leads your life

It is easy to forget the role of our mind in the quality of our lives and think that our life is not shaped by our perceptions. But in actuality, our minds lead our lives, and as Lao Tzu says once we work on correcting our minds, our lives will also be corrected by this.

So when choosing what to focus on in life, it is important to start by focusing on working our minds. By doing so, we can avoid wasting our time or energy on external factors which are out of our control.

#5-Let go to receive

It is often said the best things happen when you least expect them, meanwhile, when you focus on something to happen too much, it seems to be going further and further away from you.

Lao Tzu shares his observation of this as well, and he advises us to learn to let go.

So although working on our dreams to become our reality is essential, we should also know that to be in flow with life, and let things be is too important to avoid as well.

#6-Observe others, but discover yourself

Through the daily struggles of life, we may tend to focus too much on the outside world. But this often leads to us spending all of our energy to understand the external world, and not enough to understand our inner world.

This neglect has great consequences because we experience the world through the filter of our inner world, and thus our external world is a reflection of it.

On this subject, Lao Tzu says that although knowing others is important, true wisdom lies within knowing yourself.

So while we observe our external world, we should dig deep within to discover who we really are.

#7-Make space to become who you wish to become

It is not a rare occurrence where one loses the chance to be who they could become by being too attached to who they are. Whether it is as simple as changing our daily routines or replacing established personality traits with better ones, we may be hesitant to make a change.

On this subject, Lao Tzu advises seeing that unless one makes space for who they wish to become by letting go of who they are, it is not possible to become what they might be.

So yes, it is not easy to let go of our present self, but we need to put our trust in our future self to be able to transform.

Final thoughts

Today I’ve shared with you 7 incredible pieces of life advice by Lao Tzu.

These were:

#1-Focus on being yourself, and avoid comparing

#2-Avoid getting trapped in other people’s opinions

#3-Give life to the ideas by practicing them

#4-Realise that your mind leads your life

#5-Let go to receive

#6-Observe others, but discover yourself

#7-Make space to become who you wish to become

By applying these we can prevent unnecessary suffering, and sustain peace in our lives.

Thank you for reading.

-E.K.

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