THE BACKWARDS LAW
Why chasing what you want might be the very thing keeping you from having it.
There’s a strange contradiction built into the way most of us live.
We want to be happier, so we spend a ridiculous amount of time thinking about why we aren’t happy yet.
We want more money, so we focus constantly on not having enough.
We want confidence, so we analyze every insecurity.
We want peace, so we become obsessed with eliminating everything that disturbs us.
We want to stop caring what people think, then spend the next six months carefully measuring whether we’ve finally stopped caring what people think.
It’s absurd when you really look at it.
And Alan Watts had a way of pointing directly at that absurdity.
There’s an idea often associated with Watts called the backwards law. The basic idea is almost annoyingly simple. The harder you pursue certain things, the more your pursuit reinforces the feeling that you don’t currently have them.
The harder you try to feel secure, the more aware you become of your insecurity.
The harder you chase happiness, the more attention you place on the fact that happiness appears to be somewhere other than here.
The harder you try to become enough, the more deeply you reinforce the assumption that right now you aren’t.
That’s the trap.
And once you see it, you start noticing it absolutely everywhere.
We’ve built entire industries around convincing people that they’re one purchase, one course, one morning routine, one supplement, one relationship, one promotion, one body transformation, or one major breakthrough away from finally becoming the person they were supposed to be.
Almost there.
Just fix this one thing.
Then you can relax.
Then you’ll feel good.
Then you’ll finally arrive.
Except arriving has a peculiar habit of moving.
You make more money and discover another level of money.
You lose twenty pounds and discover another problem with your body.
You get the relationship and start worrying about losing it.
You build the business and immediately decide it isn’t big enough.
You accomplish the thing that was supposedly going to make everything okay and within about forty eight hours your mind has already created another problem.
Human beings are fascinating like that.
Give us exactly what we asked for and somehow we’ll turn it into another reason to feel incomplete.
Maybe the problem isn’t that we don’t have enough.
Maybe the problem is the assumption that something outside of this moment is going to finish us.
That’s where the backwards law becomes more than some clever philosophical idea.
It becomes a mirror.
Because think about what happens every time you desperately want something.
There’s an invisible statement underneath the desire.
I don’t have this.
And the more emotionally attached you become to getting it, the louder that statement becomes.
I don’t have it.
I don’t have it yet.
Why don’t I have it?
When am I going to have it?
Everyone else seems to have it.
Maybe there’s something wrong with me.
And suddenly the pursuit of happiness has made you miserable.
The pursuit of confidence has made you hyper aware of every insecurity.
The pursuit of abundance has turned your attention almost entirely toward scarcity.
That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have goals.
It doesn’t mean sit on the couch, stare at the ceiling, and wait for the universe to drop a Lamborghini through the roof.
There’s a difference between moving toward something and needing something to prove that you’re okay.
That distinction is massive.
You can build something because you want to experience building it.
You can improve your body because you enjoy discovering what it can do.
You can make money because money gives you options.
You can create.
You can grow.
You can challenge yourself.
None of that is the problem.
The problem begins when the thing you’re chasing becomes evidence for your worth.
Then you’re no longer pursuing the thing.
You’re pursuing permission to feel okay.
And that permission keeps moving because you’re the one moving it.
This is one of those places where personal development gets strange.
A lot of self improvement begins with the message that you aren’t where you should be.
Become better.
Become stronger.
Become disciplined.
Become successful.
Become healed.
Become awakened.
Become the highest version of yourself.
Fine.
But who exactly decided the current version was unacceptable?
That’s worth asking.
Because there’s a subtle danger in spending your entire life trying to become someone else.
Eventually the pursuit itself becomes your identity.
You become the person who is always improving.
Always fixing.
Always searching.
Always healing.
Always becoming.
Never being.
There’s always another book.
Another podcast.
Another coach.
Another answer.
Another thing you suddenly discover has apparently been wrong with you for the last thirty years.
At some point you have to laugh.
You can spend your whole life trying to reach yourself.
That might be the strangest part of all of this.
You’re already here.
The person you’re trying to fix is the same person doing the fixing.
The mind searching for peace is the mind disturbing the peace.
The person demanding certainty is the person creating anxiety around uncertainty.
The observer and the problem aren’t always as separate as they appear.
And now we’re getting into TMMA territory.
Because once you start observing yourself instead of automatically obeying yourself, something changes.
You begin noticing that not every thought deserves a response.
Not every uncomfortable emotion is a problem.
Not every moment of uncertainty needs an answer.
Not every part of your life needs to be optimized.
Sometimes you’re uncomfortable.
Okay.
Sometimes you don’t know.
Okay.
Sometimes you feel lost.
Okay.
The strange thing is that the moment you stop demanding that you never feel lost, being lost becomes significantly less frightening.
That’s the backwards law again.
Accepting the thing begins removing its power.
Trying desperately to remove it often strengthens it.
Tell yourself you absolutely cannot think about something and watch what happens.
Now it’s all you can think about.
Tell yourself you must fall asleep immediately because tomorrow is important.
Good luck with that.
Tell yourself you need to calm down right now.
Suddenly you’re monitoring whether you’re calm yet, which is a wonderfully effective way of making sure you aren’t.
The mind is hilarious.
It’s like having someone standing beside you screaming, “RELAX.”
And then wondering why you aren’t relaxed.
This is why control becomes such an interesting illusion.
We think control gives us security.
Sometimes it does.
You should probably control whether you walk into traffic.
But psychological control is different.
Trying to control every outcome, every perception, every emotion, every relationship, every possibility and every future version of yourself eventually creates the exact instability you were trying to avoid.
Because reality refuses to sign your contract.
Things change.
People change.
Bodies change.
Markets change.
Relationships change.
Plans collapse.
Things you thought would destroy you happen and somehow you continue.
Things you thought would save you arrive and somehow they don’t.
Life moves.
That might be the only part we can say with much confidence.
Life moves.
And we keep trying to freeze it long enough to feel safe.
Maybe peace isn’t found in finally getting everything under control.
Maybe peace begins when you stop requiring reality to behave exactly the way you expected it to.
That doesn’t mean becoming passive.
It means becoming available to what’s actually happening instead of constantly comparing the moment you’re living to the moment you believe you should be living.
There’s an enormous difference.
One is participation.
The other is resistance.
And resistance is exhausting.
Think about how much energy people spend fighting things that have already happened.
The relationship ended.
But internally they’re still negotiating with it.
The business failed.
But internally they’re still trying to rewrite what happened.
Someone said something five years ago.
The moment lasted fifteen seconds.
The internal argument has lasted half a decade.
Who exactly are we fighting at that point?
Reality?
Memory?
Ourselves?
This is where the backwards law gets uncomfortable because it asks us to consider that sometimes letting go isn’t another thing to accomplish.
You can even turn letting go into an achievement.
I need to let go.
Why haven’t I let go?
I thought I let go.
How will I know when I’ve officially let go?
Congratulations.
You’re now holding onto letting go.
We’re talented creatures.
Maybe letting go happens when you stop checking whether you’ve let go.
Maybe confidence appears when you’re no longer constantly measuring your confidence.
Maybe happiness becomes easier to notice when you stop demanding that every moment make you happy.
Maybe being enough starts when you stop conducting a daily investigation into whether you’re enough yet.
And maybe that’s the real lesson.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting more from your life.
There’s nothing wrong with growth.
The Mental Mastery Alliance exists around the idea that awareness creates the opportunity to move differently.
But awareness also means recognizing when growth becomes another disguise for rejection.
You can evolve without hating who you are today.
You can want something without making your current life wrong.
You can move forward without constantly running away from yourself.
That’s a different kind of growth.
It has less desperation in it.
Less performance.
Less proving.
More curiosity.
You begin asking, “What do I want to experience?” instead of “What do I need to achieve before I’m allowed to feel complete?”
Those two questions can create completely different lives.
And maybe Alan Watts was pointing toward something much simpler than another philosophy we’re supposed to memorize.
Maybe the joke is that the thing we’re desperately searching for becomes visible when we stop strangling life trying to obtain it.
Happiness isn’t necessarily somewhere ahead.
Peace isn’t waiting at the finish line.
You aren’t a construction project that needs to be completed before you’re allowed to participate in your own existence.
You’re already participating.
This is it.
Messy.
Confusing.
Funny.
Painful sometimes.
Beautiful sometimes.
Completely absurd sometimes.
And constantly changing.
So chase your goals.
Build things.
Make money.
Fall in love.
Get stronger.
Create something ridiculous.
Change your mind.
Start over.
Become whoever you’re becoming.
Just pay attention to the moment desire quietly turns into the belief that you aren’t enough without the thing you desire.
Because maybe the universe isn’t withholding anything from you.
Maybe you’re standing in the middle of your life staring so intensely at what’s missing that you’ve stopped noticing what’s actually here.
And perhaps the backwards law isn’t really backwards at all.
Maybe we are.
If something in this made you think a little differently, don’t just close the tab and move on. Text us or leave a voicemail at 647.338.1265 and you might hear your message featured on the podcast. For inquiries, collaborations, or deeper conversations, email [info@thementalmasteryalliance.com](mailto:info@thementalmasteryalliance.com). You can also reach out on Instagram @thementalmasteryalliance. And if you’re feeling the vibe, check out the store. The tin foil hats are real, just not what you think.
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