At 49, Aaron Taylor describes a fundamental shift in orientation. The first half of life was about “being and doing and having and becoming and getting and amassing.” The second half — the “back nine” — is about allowing. The assumption is that everything needed is already present; the key is getting out of the way.
“I don’t have to make it. I just have to allow it — get out of the way and allow what’s already there to come up.”
Joe Hudson pushes back on the assumption that this means less ambition: “I don’t see an unambitious, undriven man.” Aaron’s shift isn’t from drive to passivity but from effortful striving to receptive engagement — what Aaron calls the “oxymoronical” quality of letting go to take control, hitting your knees to finally stand up.
This mirrors Joe’s framing of success as “a criteria of accomplishment” — not the end goal but a necessary condition for something deeper. True accomplishment is measured not by what you did but by how you did it and whether it was deeply aligned with who you are. The how matters as much as the what.
Related Concepts
- Accomplishment is undoing not doing
- Not trying gets more done
- Evolution doesn’t require striving
- Purpose matures into choicelessness
- Feel your way to freedom