Trying Too Hard to Try

By Sam Cox

Eight months ago, I moved away from New York City to work as an apprentice on an eighty-five acre organic farm in Western Pennsylvania. Living on the farm and working six days a week for up to fifteen hours a day during the peak of the season has been one of the most challenging experiences of my life. After two-and-a-half years of living in New York, it was disorienting to be thrown into a new setting doing unfamiliar work. I wanted to quit many times, but what kept me resolved to push through was my general stubbornness and a desire to support my three fellow apprentices until the end of the season.

One reason the experience was so difficult was that in The City, I was in the habit of actively ignoring much of my physical environment in order to gain a little peace of mind. I was used to withdrawing to a mental castle to strategize and plan my days. Oppositely, farming requires being completely attuned to one's physical surroundings. Good farming requires listening to the land and animals before imposing any agenda on them and continually being flexible to changes in the weather and the animal’s behavior. At first, I tried extremely hard to do everything “right” on the farm, locking my mind into a critically evaluative state that was anywhere but in the present moment. I was always focused on what I hadn’t done, or what I was going to do, or what I would rather be doing. This behavior negated my ability to pay attention to and respond to what my senses were telling me.

A main tenet of Chinese philosophy is the idea of “trying not to try” in order to reach a fluid and effortless state of being called wu-wei (ooo-way). As a naturally reflective person, it took months before I even realized I never focused my mind on the present. As soon as I realized this, I began attempting to actively notice new things in my environment like how fast the grass had grown in a day, or new wild fruits that had ripened, or how the weeds in the field responded to changes in the weather. When I stopped trying so hard to try and started listening and responding, I also realized that this way of being equally informed my life as a designer. When I graduated from design school, I stopped creating purely because that was what I wanted to do with my life and began creating things to gain money, mastery, and recognition. Creating things had become a chore – a means to an unimportant and ill-defined goal. When I wasn't progressing, I tried harder. Perhaps this is why I decided to try farming, thinking the work I was doing was the problem and not my mental habits. I now know that I never want to live in a state of trying too hard to try. It only breeds frustration. Wu-wei is a lifelong pursuit, and for me the first step was learning to calm my thoughts and listen to the world around me. I hope to continue both farming and designing, and look forward to learning how to do both peacefully and skillfully.