What We're Given, What We Make
An awkward truth about this way of reading a life is that it’s sometimes blamed for “human lethargy.” It must be a real frustration to feel you can’t take the lead in your own life, given that humans have otherwise been the driving force behind the entire progress of civilization. It’s easy to become passive, blaming an unchangeable nature for every failure, once you start reasoning this way.
According to this branch of Eastern philosophy, each of us is given a fixed pattern at birth, built from the year, month, day, and hour we were born — and we cannot alter it. That pattern holds steady across an entire life, from birth to death, without ever shifting. Taken too literally, this idea of an unchangeable nature has bred timidity and passivity in people who’ve faced failure after failure and found it impossible to rise.
Many scholars have studied this tradition, digging into it in an effort to understand their own lives. Their real hope was to improve what lay ahead of them, and most of them eventually realized they couldn’t correct the pattern they were given. After a long enough study, they arrived at a different conclusion: that it’s wiser to align yourself with your given nature than to fight it. This runs opposite to a Western instinct to struggle against and conquer nature — the Eastern way of thinking, instead, is to live in agreement with the larger order of things.
As more people accumulated their own success stories, an attitude grew to reject this whole tradition and look instead toward more active approaches to improving life. Like Thomas Edison’s famous aphorism, “Genius is 99 percent perspiration and 1 percent inspiration,” people wanted to lean on things they could actually control — especially their own effort. For this reason, the practice of shaping one’s living environment with intention has fascinated many people; it felt like a far more proactive way to improve daily life.
Meanwhile, some frauds have also built entire businesses around promising to read a life with near-magical precision. It sounds very tempting. They mix in charms and rituals that cost far more than the reading itself. You’ll see advertisements everywhere — over the phone, online, in person — promising they can change the course of your life. If you ever meet one of them, don’t be pulled in by either the honeyed words or the dire warnings. Their knowledge tends to be shallow at best, often no more than counting which elements show up and which don’t.
In Eastern thought, five things are said to shape a successful life: our given temperament, the seasons of circumstance, how we present ourselves and the spaces we live in, good deeds, and learning or effort.
Good deeds and effort are values both East and West agree on absolutely. How we carry ourselves and the environments we shape have also drawn plenty of people in, because they, too, confirm something trustworthy: that effort matters.
I often ask the people I talk with: “Is it the way we carry ourselves that shapes our success, or is it success that reshapes the way we carry ourselves?” The traditional answer leans toward the former. These days, most people I ask actually believe it’s the latter.
A revered politician, Kim Gu, also known as an educator and leader of the Korean independence movement against Japanese occupation, once studied how to read a person’s face and bearing, hoping it would help him rise. He eventually concluded that his features alone would never carry him to success. Rather than let that discourage him, he set himself instead to cultivating his mind and his conduct. Although he lived a hard life, he became one of the most respected figures in Korean history. It’s undeniable how much effort matters to a person’s success.
Then why does our given nature and the seasons of circumstance get placed first and second at all, in a teaching about a successful life? What’s the right way to hold something like this? You could argue that understanding your own nature helps you appreciate your life as it is, which is itself close to the best possible circumstance for happiness. Others might object — if we can’t change what we’re given, how do we avoid hardship at all, and doesn’t life start to feel merciless?
I’d argue there’s simply no comparison — facing life with a clear-eyed understanding of your own given nature changes everything. Being mentally prepared for what’s coming makes an enormous difference. People who understand what shaped their present, and have some sense of what’s ahead, tend to be more receptive and hold a more affirmative attitude toward their lives and the people around them. I encourage everyone to understand themselves more deeply, and let that understanding clear the clouds hanging over their life.