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Chop Wood, Carry Water

Hudson River by Winslow Homer (1892)

Before enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

After enlightenment, chop wood, carry water.

– Zen Buddhist Principle

Chop Wood, Carry Water is a Zen idea about simplicity, mindfulness, and action.

One interpretation is, “get to work on practical, basic tasks.”

The more I experience, the less excited I can get for someone announcing a big change to their lifestyle or anything that promises fast results. New diets, new workout routines, get-rich-quick anything.

I’ve seen this movie 1,000 times. Excitement wears off. It normally happens when people get to the chopping wood and carrying water part, because those are hard and not fun. So, they stop and revert to their old lifestyle.

It is much more impressive if someone starts small, but stays consistent for a long period of time. The actions are not sexy, but the payoffs are. They just happen later. Chores occasionally even turn into pleasures.

This is why I admire people who workout consistently and manage what they consume.

At work, this usually means taking care of the work on your desk and being responsive to calls and emails.

It has become a concise way to communicate with people who get the idea, too. A friend messed up a relationship at his job and we agreed on the solution, “Well, you’re going to have to chop wood and carry water for a while.”

More generally, this phrase is one of the best metaphors I have come across as kind of an algorithm to life.

Applications

  • Mastery: If you want to make a lot of money or get good at something, a meaningful part of your day is going to be doing the same thing over and over. Rather than avoiding the inevitable boredom, you have to accept and embrace it, especially at the beginning.
  • Emotional Regulation: Focusing on the small things in your control can help you rebuild your life when things are bad and keep you humble and grounded when things are booming. If things are bad, chop wood, carry water. If things are good, chop wood, carry water.
  • Mindfulness: Good reminder to focus on the present moment. Chopping wood and carrying water can be a reminder for heightened awareness and connection to the things we are doing. Many of us are craving tangibility with the physical world. When you are free of distractions, your brain will tell you what you’re really thinking.

Mastery

We like asking high performers for advice because we want to be like them. For true high performers, the answer is usually a million reps. The only “secrets” to success are performance enhancing drugs and cheating.

Everything else is hard work. Almost all self-improvement is a continuous process of deliberate action.

I think I would enjoy a golf lesson with Tiger Woods.

The main benefit of the lesson with Tiger Woods though would be telling people I had a lesson with Tiger Woods.

If I wanted to get better at golf, practicing 50,000 putts would be more valuable. This is the equivalent of chopping wood and carrying water.

Emotional Regulation

There are a couple wars going on, we can’t tell if the presidency is an elaborate joke on us….and microplastics are in everything.

Despite this, things are the best they’ve ever been. If you needed a heart surgery at any time in human history, you wouldn’t go back in time to get one. I can get almost anything in the physical world with a few buttons on my phone. We look younger than our parents did when they were our age.

So, as always: It was the worst of times, it was the best of times.

We are always asking ourselves what we should be doing. The only things we can do are the ones within our control.

When I start doing something useful, the stress dissipates.

Chop wood, carry water.

Mindfulness

Related to the section above, we would probably all let our pinky toes get amputated before we give up our smart phones.

The benefits are obvious, but so are the downsides. The relentless onslaught of notifications can leave us feeling overwhelmed and disconnected from ourselves and our surroundings.

I rarely chop wood because I live in an apartment, but I do technically carry water from my parking garage. For the sake of the metaphor, my home applications of this are making food, writing, working out, and walking. For some it’s walking their dog, doing laundry, cleaning.

These all are opportunities to be mindful and present in the moment and gives us a better appreciation for the ordinary.

Maybe I’m just getting older, but I find a lot of pleasure in the chopping wood and carrying water.

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