"(Alan) Watts wasn’t an academic. He botched an opportunity for a scholarship to Oxford due to his shamefully 'presumptuous and capricious' writing style.

"He also wasn’t an expert in what he taught. Despite writing extensively about Eastern philosophies like Buddhism, Hinduism, Toaism, and Zen, he wasn’t ordained as any kind of monk or didn’t strictly follow any one system."

"... His essential message ... as he shared in the preface to his autobiography In My Own Way, is to strive to 'integrate the spiritual with the material'. He believed that this could be done by carving 'your own way', by accepting 'your own karma'. and by 'following your own weird.'"

He had me at "I give up". I give up pushing. I surrender to acceptance of what is, when it is. It is liberating. We live in a culture that pushes us to perform, to win. How's that going for you? How's that going for us?

Article: Alan Watts on The 5 Most Important Lessons of The 21st Century