Joe describes three steps to the art of accomplishment: hold intention without attachment, treat everything as iteration, and recognize the whole process is an undoing rather than a doing. The third is the most counterintuitive.
He offers a physical exercise: press your palms together and try as hard as you can to pull them apart (without actually doing it). Feel the tension of trying. Then feel the exact opposite — the release, the ease. That release is what undoing feels like. The “trying” — the planning, tensing, efforting — mirrors how most people approach their to-do lists and their lives.
What’s being undone is a lifetime of conditioning: the belief that you must earn your goodness, that effort equals worth, that you’re not enough as you are. The Taoist image of water captures it: water requires no effort to reach the ocean. It simply follows the path of least resistance — and is more powerful than any sword.
The martial arts version: your whole body stays relaxed until the moment of impact. Walking around tense all the time doesn’t make you more effective — it drains your energy and narrows your vision so you can’t see the bigger picture.