TAO 13- We're Our Own Worst Enemy

Success is as dangerous as failure,
and we are often our own worst enemy.

What does it mean that success is as dangerous as failure?
He who is superior is also someone's subordinate.
Receiving favor and losing it both cause alarm.
That is what is meant by success is as dangerous as failure.
What does it mean that we are often our own worst enemy?
The reason I have an enemy is because I have a "self".
If I no longer had a "self", I would no longer have an enemy.

Love the whole world as if it were your self;
then you will truly care for all things.

We have successfully become so complex that we have “tamed” GAIA.  Humans, as control freaks, have succeeded in curing infant mortality and disease to the point of overpopulation, hunted the buffalo to near extinction, and created so much stuff that we polluted our water and air with the excess.

We are our own worst enemy, and once we realize that our purpose in life is not to make stuff, but to love life itself and live within the bounds of thermodynamics; only then will be truly successful.