Someone asked: if a task done under rushed, pressured conditions driven by the unwholesome still succeeds, what happens to that kind of success afterward?

What follows is stress — stressed throughout the work, then relieved once it's done, giving life only a raw, shallow kind of happiness. In truth, every task carries a mix of both the wholesome and the unwholesome; the three natures are never cleanly separated. The wholesome helps bring success, while the unwholesome adds pressure. Even work that must race against the clock, with limited time, can still be helped to succeed by the wholesome. Sometimes rushing so anxiously actually takes longer than working calmly, with wholesome ease — simply maintaining continuous mindfulness without any pressure is enough. Even under a time constraint, the wholesome can bring success without any pressure at all.

We have many postures available to us: we can walk slowly, walk briskly, or even run at ease — pressure isn't required to run fast; running comfortably is just as possible. Success born of rushed pressure carries defilement along with it, and problems and obstacles follow, along with difficulty and hardship. And if we keep accepting that state every time, the unwholesome gets the opportunity to keep finding ways to pressure us into rushing again and again. But if we refuse to accept it, and choose instead to work at maximum efficiency and effectiveness while staying at ease, that's an option too.

All of this comes down to whether we choose to accept the wholesome or the unwholesome. If we don't accept the unwholesome, the wholesome will help adjust things — whether within a single process or across an entire system and structure. There are many better ways of living that the wholesome can help arrange, bringing us happiness without needing to live under constant pressure. But if we keep accepting that pressure again and again, the unwholesome will fix our way of living into that pattern permanently, and our life won't have the happiness it could otherwise have. That said, although it may look like we can simply choose, in reality it also depends on the proportion of the three natures within us — if the unwholesome holds too great a share, we may not really be able to choose at all. What matters most is adjusting that proportion, increasing the wholesome's share and reducing the unwholesome's strength; once the wholesome gains more power, it will adjust our life for us on its own.