Succeeding by Ceasing to Try—Part II
A Venerable Paradox
Introduction
There is fundamentally nothing paradoxical about the so-called paradox of intention. Why should it be so surprising that sometimes at least the very thing we have chosen to do is the one thing getting in our own way? Here in Part II we clear out of the way some very good psychological reasons for why this is what we ought to expect, before turning next week, in the third and final part of this article, to the overwhelming epistemological reasons and their implications for all change efforts.
—The Editors
Succeeding by Ceasing to Try—Part II
Last week, in the first part of this article, we introduced “the paradox of intention” and the wise admonition that “if at first you don’t succeed, stop trying,” and we explored a little of its deep and ancient roots in both East and West and some contemporary variants.
This week, as a necessary step to avoid confusion later, we will be taking note of a number of psychological, or more broadly, empirical angles on the paradox, in order to sweep them out of the way and clear the ground for exploring the phenomenon next week from an epistemological angle. For it is the epistemology of the alleged paradox which is most relevant to the practice of change.
Along the way, I will also be attempt to start loosening the hold of the illusion that there is anything paradoxical at all about the notion of succeeding by ceasing to try.
First, however, more on the epistemological side of the matter, I would like to exercise a little of Keats’s Negative Capability, and refrain, for now, from seeking explanations of the paradox. Instead I would like us simply to question what it is that we are dealing with, conceptually speaking, and what it is that occasions such surprise.
I am especially interested in what we must presuppose, assume tacitly, in order to be able to be surprised at all by the apparent successes of the counsel to reach our desired ends by deliberately suspending or reversing our efforts to reach them.
What are we actually talking about? What is the mystery meant to be? And is there really anything so mysterious or paradoxical here after all? And, most important, what does it say about us, about our view of the world, that we should find the successful reversal or suspension of effort paradoxical or mysterious?
For, in the late Oxford philosopher Justin Gosling’s apt formulation, “philosophy is at least (and the ‘at least’ is important) the study of the presuppositions of, and apparent contradictions within, our current ways of thinking.” What exactly is the received view to which the paradox poses a challenge?
Let us look more closely at our surprise at the success of suspending or reversing our efforts to reach our goal.
It seems at first akin to Alice’s surprise that the more she redoubled her efforts to approach the Red Queen the further Her Majesty receded, whilst when she followed the advice of walking in the opposite direction—that is, away from her—she bumped into her straight away. But what if our surprise is more like that of the Zen master’s proverbial cat who, having decided happiness resided in, consisted in, her tail, found that the faster she chased after it the faster it ran away, yet when she abandoned the pursuit and walked indifferently away from it, it followed her wherever she happily now went?
To begin with, let us note that, sometimes at least, following Palmer’s advice to “try, try again” pays off. We try harder, and we succeed at last—nothing surprising or remarkable about that! “Nothing remarkable”: Well! such occasions are largely taken for granted, and may hardly be noticed at all. Perhaps equally numerous and, I think you will agree, equally unworthy of report, are those occasions when we try harder and fail repeatedly, perhaps never succeeding in securing the sought-after objective.
Again, sometimes we suspend our efforts without success ensuing, or even reverse the direction of our efforts (pushing on the door instead of pulling) without any better result as the upshot. The thing still won’t budge. And there’s still nothing here to write home about.
In short, there is nothing we bother to remark upon, let alone find ourselves inclined to regard as a phenomenon crying out for explanation, when trying harder is rewarded with success or when it ends in failure, or when giving up or reversing our efforts comes to nought or even brings disaster in its wake, however common such experiences may be. Indeed they are all so commonplace as to be utterly unremarkable—you might say, ‘hardly even worth ignoring’!
It is precisely the (apparent) relative rarity of the remaining kinds of occasions, when surrender or retreat leads straight to victory, that means we are liable to be surprised. After all, we cannot normally be surprised at what we fully expect, or half-expect, and have every reason to expect.
What I want you to consider at least is whether we ought not to expect or at least half-expect—because we should have every reason to expect—that giving up or turning tail may sometimes be just what is required to get the desired results, and hence nothing to occasion our surprise or appear paradoxical. How is it we should sometimes at least—just how often we shall consider later—expect giving up to be just what it takes?
The Empirical Angle: Ketchup Bottles, Centipedes, Pink Elephants, Soufflés, Digital Clocks, and Bouquets
To start with, we shall note in passing, but leave on one side for the psychologists to ponder instead, the kinds of cases I shall call the “ketchup bottles.” If someone is finding it impossible to get the top off a ketchup bottle or unscrew a jam jar lid, rather than looking on with schadenfreude, tell them you will take care of it for them. Walk out of the room with the ketchup bottle, count silently to ten (perhaps making some interesting tapping or scratching or grinding noises or running some water, say, all the while) and then go back into the room, confidently handing the bottle back to them, saying, “You’ll be able to open it now.” Nine times out of ten they’ll open it effortlessly, and if so will refuse to believe your denials of having helpfully doctored it in any way. Try it!
A century ago psychologist Emile Coué in his 1922 La Maîtrise de soi-même par l'autosuggestion consciente: Autrefois de la suggestion et de ses applications,1 meticulously described and documented the phenomenon along with the therapeutic method (“la méthode Coué”), a phenomenon dubbed shortly after by the French/Swiss psychoanalyst and philosopher Charles Baudouin2 “The Law of Reversed Effect”: Essentially, the more you try and fail the more you tend in some instances to reinforce a belief that your efforts are futile; and in a contest between the will and the imagination, Coué showed, “the imagination always wins.”
Anyone, writes Coué, can walk from one end to the other of a foot-wide plank thirty feet long without stepping over the edge—but now re-try the thought experiment with the plank suspended between two towers the height of a cathedral!
In the ketchup bottle instances, commonplace as they are, we loosen the hold of a self-fulfilling prophecy (a matter for the psychologists), breaking a vicious circle where imagining, believing one will fail precipitates failure which then in turn reinforces the belief one will fail on the next attempt too.
There are numerous instances to be found, no doubt, where “reculer pour mieux sauter” is what is called for—a temporary cessation of effort so that, in coming at the challenge afresh, the cycle of failure no longer impedes one’s efforts. In Coué’s and in Baudouin’s experiments, as I recall, the more intense and repeated the unsuccessful effort the more vividly and intensely the imaginary conviction of futility is fuelled, and conversely, easing-off correspondingly weakens its hold. Again, we leave such cases, common as they are, to empirical science.
For now, it is enough to leave it at the recognition that our unconscious or pre-conscious thoughts seem to exert such an overriding hold on certain of our actions, that it is the relentless effort itself which may be making matters worse.
Now here we have a principle we can seek to find further classes of cases, or at least further instances of, since there is nothing surprising or paradoxical about the beneficial effects of refraining from doing whatever is making matters worse, and if it’s the trying that is making matters worse, why then, …stop trying! The ketchup bottle cases are just one species of this genus. What might some others be?
Well, there are the “centipedes”—as in the centipede in the children’s rhyme who was asked which leg he moved after which when he walked, “and now that centipede is lying in the ditch.” Actions which are normally carried out without conscious thought or effort, walking down the stairs for example, are interfered with (Warning! Do not try this at home!) by efforts at conscious control, and thereby rendered impossible.
Closely related to the “centipedes” are the well-known “pink elephants”—everyone knows that if I ask you to try not to think of a pink elephant, so long as you are trying you won’t be able to keep a pink elephant out of your mind. Trying to exert conscious control over obtrusive thoughts is not normally a recipe for success.
And speaking of recipes, no matter how good your recipe and how skilled a cook you are, you won’t succeed with your soufflé if you keep opening the oven door to see how well it is rising. Conscious effort—here’s a familiar soufflé for you—to get off to sleep, checking whether you are or are not nearly asleep yet, is a sure-fire recipe for insomnia. I know one GP who puts the matter like this, “When it comes to insomnia, digital clocks have a lot to answer for.”
The “Be spontaneous!” paradox in any of its various guises, for example the wife who says to her husband, “I wish you’d bring me flowers like you used to,” creates a communicational context in which, by definition, the desired goods (a spontaneous gesture) cannot be delivered. Even had the husband already intended to buy flowers the very next day, and however much his wife may appreciate them when they arrive, it has been rendered impossible, for a while at least, for him to bring her flowers “like he used to”—viz. as a spontaneous gesture unambiguously perceived by her as such.
Ketchup bottles, centipedes, pink elephants, soufflés, digital clocks and bouquets, are all different classes of cases where the desired end is actively prevented by any deliberate, willed conscious effort to secure it in a direct fashion. One can try and get off to sleep by counting sheep—an indirect approach involving something of a reversal of effort (trying to stay awake to count as many as possible)—but one cannot clock how long it takes till the exact moment of falling asleep, or keep checking on how one is doing (say by looking for the appearance of dreamlike thoughts or images). If you don’t believe me, just try!
Next week, we complete our reflections on the paradox of intention by looking at the matter from a purely epistemological angle, where we will soon see how we can apply our findings to the everyday practical business of achieving change in any sphere.
© Copyright 2004, 2023 Dr James Wilk
The moral right of the author has been asserted
Translated from the French as Self-Mastery Through Conscious Autosuggestion, published the same year
Suggestion and Autosuggestion, 1922