Ordinary People Around 30: Let Go of Excess and Shed Your Shackles

Looking back on my growth from ages 28 to 35.

I. A Blind Person Riding a Blind Horse, an Overworked Ox Breaking Down

Those years were simply too exhausting. I was overloaded.

At 20, I was charging ahead, aiming too high, taking on responsibilities and helping others, constantly adding to my own burdens.

Too many goals, too tangled, too little sense of direction. Too much pressure, too many fixations, too much weighing on my mind, too much greed, delusion, and anger.

And there were far too many people bullying you, using you, exploiting you, tormenting you, and draining you dry. Too few people nourishing, supporting, and caring for you.

So I became utterly exhausted and broke down, caught in learned helplessness, my life stuck, stalled, and hopeless. Then came self-attack, and a vicious cycle.

II. Continually Letting Go, Shedding Burdens, Removing Shackles

Let go of goals, tasks, greed, anger, delusion, and fantasies. Stop seeking fulfillment outside yourself. This is not wisdom; it is an instinct for self-preservation.

There are many cases of people who, at 30, under the pressure of a midlife crisis, stop going on matchmaking dates and stop heading toward the trap of becoming slaves to a mortgage and child-rearing. This is the first thing they get absolutely right.

Then comes separating your own responsibilities from those of your family of origin, gradually ending karmic entanglements and the passing down of karma. You also begin “Being Selective About Social Connections.”

Little by little, your inner energy returns. You become able to meet the present moment as it is, with greater ease. You have more inner energy to love yourself and be yourself. Most importantly, you quiet down, relax, and rediscover the tranquility of your authentic self. This brings you within reach of the ultimate answer.

Many people reach this point through instinct and intuition. At 30, people often turn toward Daoist philosophy.

But often, their karmic obstructions have not been cleared away, or they fall into other traps. For example, some approaches to women’s personal growth call for throwing off every constraint, separating your own responsibilities from those of others, loving yourself, becoming a powerful, sophisticated woman, making money, and building a career—only to fall back into the traps of elitism and “striving.”

III. Going Deeper Requires Help from Marx, Zhuangzi, and Psychology

1. Marx and Zhuangzi help people stop seeking fulfillment outside themselves altogether and recognize social alienation. Be at peace with the times and dwell in the natural course of things. Acceptance, the usefulness of the useless. Do not force outcomes or actions.

Recognize the many forms of alienation, disciplinary conditioning, and objectification.

1. Psychology helps people recognize the psychological roots of many problems: omnipotent narcissism, inferiority, conceit, self-hatred, CPTSD, toxic shame, escape from freedom, crises of existential meaning, and so on. Recognize PUA manipulation, NPD, entangled responsibilities, the passing down of family karma, and so on.

See the earlier article, “An East Asian Small-Town Boy: From an Omnipotent Domineering CEO to an Ordinary Person Without Such Power.”

1. Zhuangzi helps people look inward: innate wholeness, the tranquility of the authentic self, presence and ease.

1. Go about things lightly and calmly, with a healthy balance of work and rest.

1. Here and now, I, an ordinary person, am unconditionally good, at ease.