Ordinary People Around Thirty: Let Go, Shed the Shackles

Looking back on my growth from ages 28 to 35.
I. A Blind Rider on a Blind Horse, an Overworked Ox at Breaking Point
Those years were simply too exhausting. I was overloaded.
In my twenties, I raced ahead, aimed too high, liked taking things on and helping others, and kept adding to my own burdens.
Too many goals, too jumbled, with 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 bleeding you dry. Far too few people nourishing, supporting, and caring for you.
So I was utterly exhausted and broke down, caught in learned helplessness, my life stuck, stalled, and hopeless. Then came self-attack, feeding a vicious cycle.
II. Keep Letting Go, Shedding Burdens, and Removing Shackles
Let go of goals, tasks, greed, anger, delusion, and fantasies. Stop seeking outside yourself. This came from an instinct for self-preservation, not wisdom.
At thirty, under the heavy pressure of a midlife crisis, I stopped going on arranged dates and stopped heading toward the trap of becoming a slave to a mortgage and children. This was the first thing I did, and the best decision I made.
Then I began separating my own issues and responsibilities from those of my family of origin, gradually ending karmic entanglements and the passing down of karma. I also began “Being Selective About Social Connections.”
Little by little, my inner resources recovered. I could meet the present as it was and feel more at ease. I had more energy to love myself and be myself. Most importantly, I quieted down, relaxed, and rediscovered the tranquility of my authentic self. That brought me within reach of the ultimate answer.
Many people reach this point through instinct and intuition. Around thirty, 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 casting off every constraint, separating one’s own issues and responsibilities from those of others, loving oneself, becoming a strong, independent woman or a polished, 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 outside themselves altogether and recognize alienation in society. Be at peace with the times and follow the 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.
2. Psychology helps people recognize the psychological roots of many problems: omnipotent narcissism, feelings of inferiority, conceit, self-hatred, CPTSD, toxic shame, escape from freedom, crises of existential meaning, and so on. It helps them recognize psychological manipulation (PUA), narcissistic personality disorder (NPD), entanglements over whose issues and responsibilities are whose, the passing down of family karma, and so on.
   See the earlier piece, “A Small-Town East Asian Boy: From an All-Powerful, Domineering CEO to an Ordinary Person Without Power.”
3. Zhuangzi helps people seek within: innate wholeness, the tranquility of the authentic self, presence and ease.
4. Do things lightly and calmly, with a sound balance of work and rest.
5. Here and now, I, an ordinary person, am unconditionally good, at ease.