“Simply be, rather than do.” This advice comes from sage teachers of many traditions and gets picked up and parroted by our collective national media who clearly don’t understand it. Deceptively simple, and so counter to Western culture, still it stands, seemingly undeniable in its wisdom, but what if it’s only half the message?

Anyone born with a gift – creativity, leadership, logic – quickly learns the value of doing. Doing garners praise. Doing attracts reward. Doing just plain feels good and right, productive and necessary. The result of not doing also makes itself plain early on. Not doing can result in suffering. Not doing can result in injury. Not doing can result in disaster. Clearly we must do if it’s going to get done and get done right. So is this really just a construct of society, or are born doers sensing another deep truth not yet articulated?

First, an examination of the inherent wisdom of the piece already revealed. “Simply be, rather than do,” suggests that an overemphasis on doing can be harmful, and surely that’s true. When the value of life becomes associated with doing, pressure to do, and do well, can become crippling. Life-leaching fear can creep in. Suddenly it’s no longer about sharing an inborn gift, but rather living out the tangible extensions of that gift to a particular imagined level. An architect is “not successful” until she’s gotten her name on a giant building in a major city in the world. A chemist is “not successful” until he’s paid millions by a pharmaceutical company. A programmer is “not successful” until she’s hired by one of the online giants like Google or Facebook.

In times like these, doers long for the peace seemingly promised in the wisdom of “simply be, rather than do,” but it still makes them uncomfortable. They know giving up their calling won’t bring them peace, yet peace has eluded them in following their calling as well. Why can’t their accomplishments ever “be enough?” Where is this middle ground of a peaceful existence between being and doing?

The answer lies in the (only recently articulated) restatement and completion of the be-rather-than-do wisdom. The complete statement stands, similar to its incomplete counterpart, deceptively simple, undeniably true and full of peace-giving relief for born doers.

Don’t be to do; do to be.

Don’t be fooled by the simplicity of this new statement. Don’t dismiss it as semantics. It’s not. Another way to say this would be, “Don’t live to accomplish; accomplish to live.” This new understanding really is a game-changer, because it takes the concept of finding peace in mere existence to a harmonized level with an inborn desire to achieve. How? What is the difference between “being to do” and “doing to be?”

Well, almost every doer already knows how it feels to live a life “being to do.” Being to do is living to achieve, so by definition when there’s no achievement, there’s no life. When an accomplishment fails to reach the imagined level, it’s considered failure, and failure at doing becomes failure at being. Being to do is an inexhaustible fire, and living that life is constantly running from forest to fire pit, gathering more and more achievement to fuel the fire of life, for fear of that fire burning out, paradoxically knowing it’s actually not possible for the fire to burn out, and so it must be fed, fed, fed!

When, instead, the doer can turn the tables on the metaphor, and turn her life into a pursuit of “doing to be,” the paradox falls away, because, yes, it’s true that the fire can never burn out. The end-game has changed to a state already attained (just being), and the doer realizes her fire will burn forever whether she “does” or not. She’s still called to do. She still enjoys doing and so she “does,” and her fire burns brighter for it, but now that she’s accomplishing to live, she can take her time and carefully choose the right path into the forest, take her time finding the right fuel for her fire and joyfully build up the fire with that fuel, taking pleasure in whatever extra brightness that fuel brings, whether it’s consumed instantaneously or over a lifetime, whether it adds to the size or brightness of the flames or not. The fire is no longer really fueled by her achievement. The fire is now recognized as a joyful constant that can never be diminished, only improved upon.

Because the doer who’s achieving to live knows her fire is already perfect, knows it doesn’t actually need any fuel that she can ever bring to it, in order to burn. The fuel is its own reward. Success (defined now as existence) is already attained. Anything above and beyond is now a bonus. And when achievement is changed from a must to a bonus, failure ceases to exist.

“Doing to be” also instantly and effortlessly clarifies any concerns about motivation and the proper pursuits. False motives within the self are immediately exposed the minute a doer begins doing to be. A doer who wakes up fully understanding do-to-be logic for the first time can instantly, effortlessly and guiltlessly shed the things in his life that aren’t working or that aren’t worth her time. They’re completely free! After all, when the quintessential goal in life is to exist, even the most highly motivated doer recognizes that the game is already won!