When Trying Too Hard Backfires — Tao Te Ching

Lao Tzu opens Part II with a ladder of virtue turned performance. Those who possessed in highest degree the attributes of the Tao did not seek to show them, and therefore possessed them in fullest measure. Those who possessed them in a lower degree sought how not to lose them, and therefore did not possess them in fullest measure. The moment you advertise your goodness, you have already stepped down a rung.

Then he tracks what happens as each level falls away from natural alignment. Those with the highest attributes did nothing with a purpose and had no need to do anything; lower ones were always doing. Benevolence and righteousness require more striving as they descend, until those with the highest sense of propriety seek to show it and, when men do not respond, bare the arm and march up to them. When the Tao was lost its attributes appeared; when attributes were lost, benevolence appeared; when benevolence was lost, righteousness appeared; when righteousness was lost, the proprieties appeared.

He closes by naming the cost of surface correctness. Propriety is the attenuated form of leal-heartedness and good faith, and the commencement of disorder; swift apprehension is only a flower of the Tao and the beginning of stupidity. The Great man abides by what is solid and eschews what is flimsy; he dwells with the fruit and not with the flower.