Shinn’s fourth chapter is called “The Law of Nonresistance,” and its first line reads like a dare.

Nothing on earth can resist an absolutely nonresistant person.

Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925), “The Law of Nonresistance”

What she actually said

She builds the chapter on the gospel instruction to resist not evil, and she takes it literally. In her theology evil comes from believing in two powers instead of one, so there is nothing real to fight.

Her method is to bless whatever stands in the way. A woman who resents a business contact for constantly talking lack decides he is there for her good, and later meets, through him, someone who pays her several thousand dollars. Another runs away from a critical mother and marries a man exactly like her. The lesson, as Shinn tells it: a situation you resist stays, and one you run from runs after you.

She saw the obvious objection coming.

My students have often said: “I don’t want to be a door-mat.” I reply “when you use nonresistance with wisdom, no one will ever be able to walk over you.”

Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925), “The Law of Nonresistance”

Where it goes wrong

As practical advice, stop resisting can go badly. Said to a woman in an unsafe home, a dishonest partnership or a job that won’t pay her, it is the opposite of help. Some situations call for a lawyer or a locksmith. Blessing a situation doesn’t get you out of it.

The chapter is also crowded with outcomes that arrive on cue, including a forty-one-thousand-dollar deal the afternoon a man repeated a rhyme. Those are testimonies. You can enjoy them without treating them as a forecast.

Where it gets useful

Read with wisdom, her own condition, nonresistance looks a lot like steadiness. You stop arguing with the facts (the balance, the late invoice, the client who went quiet) and start answering them. Shinn’s phone story makes the point by accident. She was so braced for one important call that she didn’t notice the receiver had been off the hook for an hour.

Tucked into the same chapter is one of the best money lessons in the book. Shinn gave students a rhyme about wonderful work, wonderful service and wonderful pay, and warned that an affirmation has to be worded carefully enough to cover the ground. Her cautionary tale is a woman who asked for work, got plenty of it, and was never paid. The fix was adding the pay. Take that one literally.

Practice it this week

  • Put the pay in the request. Every pitch or proposal you send this week names the price, the payment date and what happens if payment is late.
  • Answer a lowball without heat. Restate your price once, kindly, and stop talking. “My rate is $X, and I’d love to work together at that rate.” Don’t negotiate against yourself in the silence.
  • Sleep on the hot email. When a message makes your jaw tighten, write the reply tonight and send it tomorrow.
  • Walk toward the thing that follows you. The overdue tax form, the talk with your business partner, the account you haven’t opened in months. Shinn says what you run from runs after you, and on this one she’s right for very ordinary reasons. Book thirty minutes and open it.

Read the original: Florence Scovel Shinn, The Game of Life and How to Play It (1925), chapter “The Law of Nonresistance.” Published in the United States in 1925, so it has been in the US public domain since January 1, 2021. Free full text at Project Gutenberg (eBook #74878): https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/74878