There’s an old and famous parable which goes something like this:

A farmer hears his donkey wailing and finds the donkey has tumbled into an unused well.

After a lot of struggle and strain, the farmer decides there's no way to save his donkey. So he begins to shovel dirt, sand & soil into the well to put the donkey out of his misery.

Realising that he's about to join the great pasture in the sky, the donkey starts to thrash around and bray louder & louder. But a few minutes later, all goes quiet.

The farmer looks down into the well. He can see the donkey shaking off the dirt as it lands on its back and stepping onto the growing pile of dirt beneath him.

Eventually the pile increases high enough for the donkey to jump over the edge of the well and wander free.

The moral of the story?

Something about dusting yourself off and rising above the grime that life can throw at you?

I mean, sure. That works.

But there’s a more powerful message at the heart of this parable.

And it’s this:

Problems lose their grip when you let go of the fight.

Said another way - it’s the struggle itself which gives energy to our problems and makes them bigger or harder to solve.

This is an idea which shows up in many mysterious and unexpected ways.

Let’s rewind the clock 100 years and take Prohibition as an example.

In the 1920s, the killjoy American authorities tried to clamp down on alcohol. 

Local police raided underground bars. Surveillance was stepped up at ports to stop bootleggers smuggling in alcohol from Canada and Mexico. Public campaigns were launched to vilify alcohol and discourage people quaffing a cheeky tipple or two.

I’m sure you know what happened next.

Prohibition created a lucrative black market. Criminal syndicates like Al Capone’s Chicago outfit stepped in and the competition led to violent turf wars, including events like the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre.

But that’s not all.

An estimated 10,000 people died during Prohibition from drinking dodgy moonshine. And by the mid-1920s the Yanks were drinking the same as they were before Prohibition started.

Goes to show:

What we push back against pushes back harder.

Now, shall we bring this closer to home with a more relevant example?

In 2021, my boss took me out to a working lunch. She asked if I’d be up for taking on some extra responsibilities and before I knew it, my job doubled in size.

It got to the point where I was staying late, showing up early and still falling behind. Work had taken over and something had to give.

I’d read somewhere that boundaries could help protect my time & energy, so I gave it a shot. Politely and professionally, I started saying no to things and pushing back on work.

But I didn’t find setting boundaries to be the magic bullet I’d expected.

For one, the moments I needed to set boundaries were typically the moments I found it hardest to set them.

I also found that setting a boundary made me feel more uncomfortable, not less uncomfortable.

But perhaps most important of all, I realised that setting a boundary didn’t mean that someone else would follow that boundary.

As it turns out, most of the time they didn’t! My colleagues walked right over my boundaries like a puppy prances over freshly laid concrete. 

Work got so overwhelming that a few months later I ended up setting the boundary of all boundaries.

A boundary that no-one could ignore.

I quit my job!

I’d love to say I walked away with a calm and measured clarity. 

But I didn’t. 

I quit in a blur of burn out, resentment and made the kind of dramatic exit that's usually saved for reality TV contestants who've been voted off a tropical island.

Looking back, I can see quitting wasn’t the solution. 

It was a symptom. A symptom of the story I’d created about being overwhelmed, taken advantage of and stuck in a fight I couldn’t win.

Nowadays, I see why my boundaries made me feel more & more fed up.

Taking a stand and trying to hold my own ground was basically the same as the donkey in a well. Only I was suffocating under the weight of a slow-motion avalanche of workplace compost instead of real life dirt and grime.

But it’s not setting boundaries which helps us move forward with less friction and more ease.

It’s letting go of those boundaries instead.

But Tom! I hear you cry. What about all those times when someone disrespects me, takes advantage of me or gets me to do something I don’t want to do?

Well, if drawing a line in the sand is what creates your struggle (as I’m suggesting it is – the more you resist, the more resistance you create), then my sneaky suspicion is that when you stop taking a stand and start to channel your inner donkey, you’ll find people disrespect or take advantage of you less.

So you’re not setting a boundary out of resistance. Instead, you’re making a choice about where your energy goes. 

You’re not “holding the line” out of guilt, fear, or defensiveness. You’re just stating facts and trusting that’s enough.

And you’re not creating stories about “being taken advantage of”. Instead, you’re focusing on what you can control.

That’s not to say that there won’t be moments when a sly and corrupting character genuinely tries to manipulate or undermine you.

But letting go doesn’t mean ignoring a problem, doing nothing or giving up.

It means releasing our emotional grip, approaching problems with a calmer mind and using common sense moment to moment. 

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