Most people discover the backwards law by accident—usually after trying everything else.
You try to be happier, more focused, more confident. You read the books, refine the routines, apply more effort. And somehow, the harder you push, the worse things feel. Calm turns slippery. Clarity retreats. Motivation collapses under its own weight.
This is the paradox Alan Watts described as the backwards law. The more you chase certain inner states, the further away they move.
It shows up everywhere. Trying to relax makes you tense. Trying to fall asleep keeps you awake. Trying to deal with anxiety creates a second layer of anxiety—now you’re not just uncomfortable, you’re uncomfortable about being uncomfortable.
What’s going wrong isn’t effort itself. It’s the assumption that inner life works like an external problem. Build, fix, improve—those tools work brilliantly for systems and projects. But peace, clarity, and meaning don’t respond to force. They emerge when resistance drops.
This is why acceptance is so often misunderstood. It’s not giving up or settling. It’s clarity. When you stop arguing with what’s “now”, you free up energy to respond instead of react.
Journaling helps here in a quiet, almost sneaky way. When you write without trying to improve your mood or reach a breakthrough, you stop wrestling your thoughts into shape. You let the mess be visible. And often—without trying—something loosens. Patterns arrive. The mind settles on its own.
That’s the backwards law at work.
You don’t get clarity by demanding it.
You don’t find peace by hunting it down.
You make space—and let it arrive.
The irony is that the relief people are chasing usually shows up after they stop chasing at all.
