"When a cat falls out of a tree, it lets go of itself. The cat becomes
completely relaxed, and lands lightly on the ground. But if a cat
were about to fall out of a tree and suddenly make up its mind
that it didn't want to fall, it would become tense and rigid, and
would be just a bag of broken bones upon landing.
In the same way, it is the philosophy of the Tao that we are all
falling off a tree, at every moment of our lives. As a matter of fact,
the moment we were born we were kicked off a precipice and we
are falling, and there is nothing that can stop it.
So instead of living in a state of chronic tension, and clinging to
all sorts of things that are actually falling with us because the
whole world is impermanent, be like a cat."
-Alan Watts, What is Tao?