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Could you analyse this quote:

When I let go of what I am, I become what I might be.
– Lao Tzu. (Source)

Tom
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  • You find a pretty good explanation at link. Anyhow, please add a reference to the original passage from Lao Tzu. – Jo Wehler Dec 13 '15 at 08:09
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    This might be a misquote: https://www.reddit.com/r/quotes/comments/1q667o/when_i_let_go_of_what_i_am_i_become_what_i_might/ – virmaior Dec 13 '15 at 08:10
  • Although the language is very much in line with Lao Tzu's concept of wei-wu-wei, need to have reference to the original passage to comment. David Loy comments heavily on similar Lao Tzu passages in Chapter 3 of his book "Non-Duality: A Study in Comparative Philosophy" – Swami Vishwananda Dec 13 '15 at 10:18
  • "the become what I might be bit" depending on what it means could either be very compatible or the antithesis of something the Daodejing would ever say – virmaior Dec 13 '15 at 12:40
  • @JoWehler, so the quote should be "When I let go of what I am, I become what I want to be"? – Tom Dec 13 '15 at 14:32
  • @Tom I for myself can only follow the discussion of the experts. But as I understand, the sentence cannot be identified in Lao Tzu's work. Hence the sentence is not a quote at all. – Jo Wehler Dec 13 '15 at 17:19

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Explaining Chinese proverbs in English in oft impossible. The way the Chinese think about philosophy makes the concept of "explaining" it less meaningful than that concept in Western thought. The Chinese tend not to draw a box around the meaning of their proverbs and say "this is what this means," or if they do, they are rarely formed along the lines Westerners expect to see. They choose proverbs which intentionally apply well beyond the range of their narrow meaning. Instead, we tend to go for "interpretations" instead -- an attempt to define the "meaning" of the phrase in one small scope which hopefully inspires the reader to reflect on the greater meaning of the proverb.

In the West, we have our concept of our "self image." It's the little image inside of us which we believe reflects who we are. If Lao Tzu used that instrument, he would most likely say that we shape our self image and our self image shapes us. If we seek to protect this self image from the world, never letting it interact with anything besides ourself, we eventually reach a point where our goal is to keep the self image constant and frozen in what we believe we are. In doing so, we naturally create a self image which causes us to freeze ourselves.

By breaking down the barriers we put around that self image, we may find that a large amount of our capabilities were tied up in the protection of this self image. In fact, much of them may be overzealous, clutching tightly to the exact preserved image we want to see. I believe Lao Tzu would appreciate people relaxing their grip, and finding out just how much more they had to become what they will be, simply by allocating resources towards doing things other than preservation of an image.

Cort Ammon
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