Just Getting By Sucks

Breadcrumbs of Wisdom From My Taoist Journey

“Most human beings live lives where they simply get by, lives in which they become victims of the details around them. At high frequencies, you tame the small by applying your energy only to that which serves a higher purpose.”

Richard Rudd, The Gene Keys.

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There is a quiet tyranny that rules much of modern life. It is not the tyranny of governments or corporations. I call it the tyranny of the trivial.

Emails. Petty conflicts. Notifications. Minor irritations. Endless commentary. Small arguments with strangers who will never matter to the direction of our lives.

Before we know it, the small has quietly taken the throne and we become servants to it.

Over the years, my Taoist journey has slowly revealed to me that most suffering does not come from grand tragedies. It ensues from the accumulation of tiny distractions that fracture our attention and shrink our sense of purpose.

The Taoist sages had a wordless way of warning us about this trap, namely, they taught us to return to the essential.

The Seduction of the Small

The small rarely appears dangerous. In fact, it often appears urgent.

A comment that demands a reply.

A piece of news that provokes outrage.

A minor slight that bruises the ego.

Yet these moments have an extraordinary ability to hijack our energy.

The Tao Te Ching reminds us of this subtle truth:

“He who pursues the Tao each day decreases.”

To decrease means removing what does not matter. It means stripping away the layers of noise that cloud our clarity.

But modern culture trains us to do the opposite.

We increase everything. More information. More opinions. More reactions.

The result is predictable. Our attention fragments. Our emotional energy drains. Our higher purpose becomes buried beneath a thousand small things that never deserved our devotion.

Taming the Small

Richard Rudd’s phrase “tame the small” resonates deeply with the Taoist spirit.

To tame the small is not to fight it.

It is to refuse to feed it. As a friend of mine says, “life should be about addition by subtraction.”

This is where Taoist wisdom becomes almost mischievous in its simplicity. The sages did not believe that we should conquer every obstacle. Often the wiser move is simply to step around it.

The I Ching captures this beautifully in Hexagram 26, The Taming Power of the Great.

This hexagram teaches that strength is not loud or reactive. It is disciplined attention. It is the ability to store energy and apply it only where it truly matters.

When we stop scattering ourselves across trivialities, something remarkable happens.

Our energy consolidates.

Our clarity sharpens.

And suddenly we have the power to move mountains that once seemed immovable.

The Tao of Higher Purpose

One of the most liberating realizations of my Taoist studies is this:

Your life purpose rarely reveals itself in the noise.

It appears in the quiet spaces that remain after the noise has been cleared away.

The Tao Te Ching says:

“To the mind that is still, the whole universe surrenders.”

Stillness is not passivity. It is precision.

When you stop reacting to every small disturbance, your attention becomes available for something much larger. Creative work deepens. Conversations become more meaningful. Insight begins to surface in unexpected ways.

Purpose emerges not through frantic searching but through disciplined refusal to be pulled into every trivial drama.

Becoming a Steward of Your Energy

The older I get, the more I see attention as the most sacred currency we possess. Every argument we engage in, every distraction we indulge, every petty irritation we entertain is an energetic investment.

💡The question is simple: Does it serve the life you are trying to build?

The Taoist path is not about becoming indifferent to the world. It is about becoming highly selective about where your energy flows.

The I Ching teaches that when we align with the deeper currents of life, events begin to unfold with surprising ease.

But alignment requires space. And space only appears when we stop feeding the small.

The Quiet Liberation

There is a profound freedom that comes when you no longer feel compelled to respond to every trivial pull on your attention.

The small loses its grip.

The ego quiets.

Your life begins to move with the steady rhythm of the Tao rather than the frantic tempo of distraction.

And in that spaciousness, something extraordinary becomes possible. You begin to live deliberately. Not as a victim of the details. But as a steward of your energy, guided by a purpose that is finally large enough to deserve it.

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If these Daily Chocolate Taoist reflections have steadied your nervous system, cracked open your thinking, or helped you burn off what no longer fits, I would be grateful for your support at $6 a month or $60 for the year.

No AI fluff. Just fuel to keep the fire lit.

And if you’re feeling especially feral as the Year of the Fire Horse kicks in, would you be kind enough to support my liquid fuel habit with a dirty chai with almond milk (or a few).

That’s my ritual. Warm cup. Quiet mind. Paradoxical, mysterious and uncertain truths taking shape on the page.

Fire Horse energy doesn’t beg. It moves. It sheds. It refuses small lives.

Thank you for reading, for resisting the algorithmic lullaby, and for stepping into this year fully awake, even if you’ve sworn off goals, resolutions, and other polite lies. Here’s to less forcing, more flow, and a year that burns cleaner than anything we could have planned.

Diamond-Michael Scott

The Chocolate Taoist

Chocolatetaoist@proton.me