You Don’t Have to Win at Being Alive: An Imagined Conversation with Alan Watts
Evidence · context · curiosity
A short imagined conversation with Alan Watts has been circulating around a powerful idea: perhaps life is not an examination, and perhaps the person we are trying so hard to become is partly an image created by the mind.
The dialogue below is not a transcript, historical interview or verified quotation from Alan Watts. It is a modern creative piece inspired by themes found across his lectures and books—especially his criticism of compulsive self-improvement, his interest in Zen and Taoism, and his invitation to experience life directly rather than treating it only as a problem to solve.
That distinction matters. Alan Watts really was a teacher of Buddhism and comparative philosophy, taught at the American Academy of Asian Studies, later served as its dean, and became one of the best-known Western interpreters of Zen, Taoism and Hindu philosophy.[1] But the conversation that follows should be read as a thoughtful literary interpretation of his ideas, not as words he actually exchanged with an interviewer.
The full imagined conversation
I asked Alan Watts what he learned from being a teacher.
(An imagined conversation inspired by Alan Watts’ lectures and writings on Zen, Taoism, self-understanding, and the illusion of becoming.)
I asked,
“Alan, you taught Buddhism.
You lectured about Zen, Taoism, Hinduism, and the nature of reality.
You became a professor and later a dean.
So after teaching all those years…
what did you finally learn?”Watts smiled.
“That most people don’t actually want an answer.”I laughed.
“What do you mean?”“They want reassurance.
They want someone to tell them:
‘Here is what life means.’
‘Here is what you should do.’
‘Here is how to become enlightened.’
And preferably,
a five-step plan.”“So people came to you looking for instructions?”
“Constantly.
How to meditate.
How to become peaceful.
How to stop worrying.
How to become enlightened.”“And what did you tell them?”
He smiled.
“I told them that they were trying to turn life into a problem to be solved.”I thought about that.
“So what’s wrong with trying to improve ourselves?”“Nothing.
Except that you can spend your entire life trying to become the person you think you ought to be.
And then one day you discover that the person you were trying to become…
was another idea in your head.”“So we are trapped by our own self-improvement?”
“Sometimes.
You see, the moment you say,
‘I must become more peaceful,’
you have already created an unpeaceful person who is trying very hard to become peaceful.”I laughed.
“That sounds ridiculous.”“It is.
That’s why it’s so funny.”Then he leaned back.
“Life isn’t a test you have to pass.”“So what is it?”
“Perhaps you are asking the wrong question.”
“What should I ask instead?”
Watts smiled.
“What if you stopped trying to get somewhere?”I was quiet.
Because I realized how much of my life had been organized around that question:
How can I become better?
How can I become more successful?
How can I become more spiritual?
How can I finally become…
enough?And suddenly, the irony became obvious.
I had turned being alive
into another self-improvement project.Maybe life isn’t asking me to become someone else.
Maybe it is asking me to notice that I am already here.And perhaps this is why Watts could make profound things sound almost absurd:
You don’t have to win at being alive.
You just have to stop treating life
like an exam.
Why the dialogue sounds like Alan Watts
The wording is contemporary, but the central paradox is recognisably Wattsian. Watts often questioned the idea that a defective inner self could repair itself through force. In one recorded lecture, he compared constant self-improvement to “trying to bite your own teeth.”[3] The joke exposes a loop: the person appointed to fix the self is the same self being declared unfit.
This did not mean that Watts believed people should never learn, practise, apologise, mature or change harmful behaviour. His official biography describes his emphasis as self-understanding rather than self-improvement.[1] The difference is subtle but important. Growth can emerge from seeing clearly what we are doing. Compulsive self-improvement begins with a verdict: “I am unacceptable now, and I may earn the right to exist later.”
His bibliography shows how consistently he returned to this problem. The Wisdom of Insecurity explored the attempt to obtain psychological certainty; The Way of Zen introduced Zen thought to a wide Western audience; and The Book: On the Taboo Against Knowing Who You Are challenged the image of the self as an isolated ego separated from the world.[2]
The trap hidden inside “I must become better”
There is nothing inherently wrong with setting goals. Learning to communicate, managing money, becoming healthier, developing a skill or repairing a relationship may require sustained effort. The trap begins when a useful goal becomes a judgement about the whole person.
Compare these two positions:
- “I want to practise responding more patiently.” This identifies a behaviour that can be observed and changed.
- “I must become a peaceful person before I am enough.” This turns peace into a condition for self-acceptance.
The second position divides the self into an impatient judge and a condemned person who must satisfy it. Even success may not end the trial, because the standard can move. Once one achievement is reached, another appears. Life becomes an endless appeal against the sentence of not being enough.
Psychological research does not prove Watts’ philosophy, but it offers a useful parallel. A meta-analysis of 151 studies found that greater psychological inflexibility—rigid reactions to thoughts and feelings that interfere with valued action—was associated with poorer wellbeing. Because much of the evidence was cross-sectional, it shows an association rather than proving a single direction of cause.[5]
Research on perfectionism similarly distinguishes healthy effort from a system in which self-worth depends on achievement. A synthesis of qualitative studies identified themes including self-worth tied to performance, harsh expectations and patterns that maintain anxiety and depression.[7]
Acceptance is not resignation
The imagined conversation can be misunderstood as saying, “Never improve anything.” That would replace one rigid rule with another.
Acceptance means beginning with an honest recognition of what is already present: this body, this fear, this unfinished personality, this particular day. Resignation says that nothing can change. Acceptance says that change does not require us to hate the place from which we begin.
In laboratory, diary and longitudinal studies, accepting difficult thoughts and emotions—rather than judging them—was associated with less negative emotion during stress and better later psychological health.[6] Acceptance does not make every feeling pleasant or every choice wise. It reduces the additional struggle created by insisting that the present moment must not be what it is.
This is close to the distinction between action and forced action. A person can apologise because they understand the harm they caused, not because they are trying to purchase an identity as a good person. They can exercise because caring for the body matters, not because the body must earn permission to be seen. They can meditate to notice experience, not to defeat every thought and graduate from being human.
What Taoism adds: action without strain
Watts often used Taoist ideas to challenge the Western habit of treating life as a conquest. One important concept is wuwei, often translated as effortless, non-forcing or uncontrived action. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy identifies wuwei and ziran—naturalness or being-so-of-itself—as central Daoist themes.[4]
Non-forcing does not mean never acting. A skilled swimmer still moves. A musician still practises. A gardener still plants and prunes. The difference is responsiveness: working with conditions rather than demanding that reality obey an abstract plan.
Applied to personal growth, this suggests a different question. Instead of “How do I force myself to become someone better?” we might ask, “What becomes possible when I pay attention to what is actually happening?”
Why we keep asking teachers for a five-step plan
Instructions can be useful. If a tyre is flat or an account must be reconciled, a sequence of steps is exactly what we need. But questions about identity, meaning, grief and spiritual life are not always technical problems.
A plan offers reassurance because it turns uncertainty into a path with checkpoints. It can also transfer responsibility to an authority: if we obey correctly, perhaps we cannot fail. Yet no teacher can provide a method that removes every ambiguity from being alive.
Watts called himself a philosophical entertainer rather than a guru who demanded allegiance. His approach was playful because humour loosens the mind’s demand for a final formula. The laugh in the imagined conversation is not mockery. It is the moment we see the strange effort involved in trying to command ourselves to be spontaneous.
Life is not an exam—but actions still matter
“You do not have to win at being alive” does not mean that consequences disappear. We remain responsible for how we treat people, how we use power and how we respond when we cause harm. Self-acceptance cannot become an excuse for cruelty, addiction, neglect or refusing help.
The insight is narrower and kinder: existence is not a qualification awarded only to the most productive, enlightened or admired person. A human life is already happening before it has been perfected.
We can therefore hold two truths together:
- I am not a failed future version of myself.
- I can still choose actions that express courage, care and responsibility.
Growth then becomes participation rather than self-rejection. We do not have to manufacture a worthy self before beginning. We begin here, as the unfinished person who is already alive.
A practical reflection
If your life has become another self-improvement project, try replacing judgement with curiosity:
- Name the examination. What invisible test do you believe you must pass—success, attractiveness, productivity, spirituality, usefulness or approval?
- Find the postponed life. What are you refusing to experience until you become “good enough”?
- Separate worth from behaviour. A behaviour can need change without turning the whole person into a failure.
- Choose a value, not an identity costume. Instead of trying to look peaceful, successful or enlightened, take one action that expresses honesty, care or courage.
- Leave room for play. Not every meaningful activity must become a measurement, brand, achievement or optimisation programme.
You are already here
The imagined Watts gives no final answer because the absence of a final answer is part of the lesson. The mind wants a destination called “enough.” It imagines that one more achievement, practice, insight or transformation will finally allow life to begin.
But life is not waiting at the end of the improvement plan. It is present in the person making the plan, the anxiety beneath it, the breath occurring while the future is being imagined, and the ordinary world we keep overlooking.
You may still learn and change. You may still seek therapy, practise discipline, build something difficult or repair what has been damaged. The invitation is not to abandon growth. It is to stop using growth as proof that you deserve to exist.
You do not have to win at being alive. You are already participating.
This article is a philosophical and psychological reflection. The featured dialogue is an original imagined conversation inspired by Alan Watts’ published themes; it is not an authentic Alan Watts transcript or quotation. Persistent anxiety, depression or self-criticism that disrupts daily life may deserve support from a qualified mental-health professional.
Sources
- Alan Watts Organization: Biography
- Alan Watts Organization: Books and Articles
- Alan Watts: Spiritual Authority transcript
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy: Daoist Philosophy
- Psychological inflexibility and wellbeing: meta-analysis
- Psychological health benefits of accepting negative emotions and thoughts
- Anxiety, depression and perfectionism: qualitative meta-synthesis