When we’re stuck or unhappy, it’s easy to see the world in black and white—hope or fear, success or failure, right or wrong. Western thinking, influenced by Aristotle, teaches us to analyze and categorize: break things apart to understand them. And that has its place. This very site is organized into sections, and I analyzed Taoism before I ever considered writing about it.

But Lao Tzu didn’t organize his teachings like that. The Tao Te Ching resists analysis. Its verses are non-linear, ideas recur and intertwine, and just when you think you’ve grasped a concept, the text shifts, revealing another layer. That’s because life itself is not neatly categorized—it is one great, interwoven whole.

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In truth, we cannot understand anything in isolation. I can’t know who I am without considering my relationships. I can’t fully value health unless I’ve been sick. Even the brightness of a light bulb depends on the light already in the room. Taoism teaches that the qualities we often treat as opposites—good and bad, strong and weak—are not truly separate. They’re interdependent, two sides of the same coin.

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This is the meaning behind the Yin Yang symbol. The hill is one, though it has both a sunlit and a shadowed side. In my own life, I grew up in poverty with a mother who worked three jobs and gave us what she could—once, just a Seventeen magazine and two yards of fabric for Christmas. We lived on the edge of great wealth, and I often felt ashamed and excluded. But that contrast—being shut out of material abundance while surrounded by love and deep thought—shaped who I became. It gave me insight, gratitude, and a yearning for what truly matters. It was, though painful, one of life’s greatest gifts.

Viktor Frankl, one of the most important psychologists of the 20th century, came to understand the vital truth of non-duality while imprisoned in a World War II concentration camp. His dignity and freedom had been stripped away, yet instead of succumbing to despair, he chose to observe—and to hope.

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Through that deep observation, he arrived at a life-altering insight: even in the midst of profound suffering, we retain one essential freedom—the ability to choose our response. Any of us--rich, poor, bright, average, strong, weak, ill or full of health--can surrender to darkness, or we can hold fast to our sense of goodness and rise above it.

 

Frankl survived, and the insight he gained blossomed into his theory of logotherapy, which teaches that our deepest motivation is not pleasure or power, but meaning. What seemed horrific beyond words became, paradoxically, one of the greatest gifts of his life.  So it is for all of us. What first appears as unbearable pain may, in time, yield unexpected beauty. Suffering is not proof of meaninglessness—it is often an essential part of the dance.

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And so, life isn’t about eliminating the “bad” and chasing the “good.” It’s about recognizing that both are part of a greater whole. The Tao doesn’t promise ease, but it offers balance. Just as atoms depend on both positive and negative charges, life depends on the dynamic interplay of opposites. There is no light without shadow, no joy without sorrow.

When we begin to see life this way, we let go of perfectionism. We stop expecting things to go “right” all the time. We accept that reality isn’t black or white—it’s a flowing, shifting spectrum. And when we live with that awareness, peace becomes possible in even the hardest of moments.