If my goal was to achieve all of my goals as quickly as possible, through a series of super-amazing anyone-can-do-but-I'm-so-special-so-you-should-give-me-money-life-hacks, then Daoism would be a huge distraction. But I call this blog "the good life: becoming a goal nerd." Not only would I emphasize that I am seeking the good the life, but I would also point out that is says becoming a goal nerd, not that I am, and not certainly not "hear the proclamations of the the one, the only goal nerd."
I kept seeing the Dao come up in everything I was reading, from Daniel Suelo and talk of spirituality and moneylessness, the book Trying not to Try, which I borrowed from the library because it was on display, and most recently, a remarkable book I have recently read called the Art of Learning by Josh Waitzkin.
Daoism ties together several threads that have been going on in my mind since before my students were born, a phrase I have taken to use with my students -- when try -- both for the dramatic effect it causes for them, but also to remind myself of the chasm between myself and them. I plan on doing much reflective writing on all of these threads, but they include gardening and my love for uncontrolled "margins" of a garden, the need for alone time to clear my head, breathing and meditation, the balancing of goals that seem to have contradictory aspects, a calm state of mind and peak human performance.
If you want a basic primer of Daoist thought, sure Wikipedia works, but I found a decent page dedicated to Lao Tzu's original. And there is Fingers Pointing Towards the Moon, which is written in terse writing by a Brit who went by the pen name Wei Wu Wei (which translates to action through non-action, and is the central paradox addressed in the book Trying not to Try, and a paradox worth spending much time reflecting upon.)
As I was trying to clarify my terms, and see how much my understanding of daoism is an idiosyncratic reading, I came by this quote from from Encyclopedia Britannica online about the Dao:
Human beings, whose society and culture are marked by artifice and constraint, can hope only to attune themselves to its mysterious transformations but receive no special favour.A good life, including the pursuit of goals, needs to take into account this fact.
