Dual Cultivation of Buddhism and Taoism: Living in One’s Own World Without Losing Contact with the World

Why choosing inner clarity over constant connection is not withdrawal, but a different way of being present
A friend recently sent me one of those viral personality tests online. The result labeled me the “Boss” type. It was amusing, but not entirely surprising. Other frameworks have pointed in a similar direction: Frank Underwood from House of Cards, ENTJ-A, Enneagram 8w7. None of these systems is definitive, of course, but when multiple lenses keep illuminating the same pattern, it is worth paying attention.

In my case, they all seemed to circle around one trait I have gradually come to recognize as central to my life: I am deeply accustomed to living in my own world. Suddenly I felt like talking about this idea of “being used to living in my own world” ~

My friends all know that I really enjoy living in my own world hahaha. A lot of the time, it’s just that I prefer to bring my attention back to myself.

For a long time, I assumed this was something I needed to soften, explain, or correct. We live in a culture that treats constant visibility as proof of warmth, and perpetual engagement as proof of openness. If you are not regularly consuming other people’s updates, reacting in real time, or participating in the ambient noise of social life, it is easy to be read as distant. To live from a strong inner center is often mistaken for aloofness, social indifference, or even narcissism.

But I have come to think that this reading is wrong.

Living in one’s own world is not necessarily a rejection of reality. More often, it is a different way of organizing one’s relationship to reality. It means being guided less by external stimulation and more by inward coherence. It means refusing to let every passing signal claim residence in the mind. It means developing an inner life substantial enough that one is not constantly pulled outward in search of confirmation.

This is perhaps why my relationship with social media has grown increasingly asymmetrical. I post, but I do not scroll much. I share, but I consume very little. On leisure social media platforms, I follow no one at all. This is not because I lack curiosity about others, nor because I imagine myself above the social field. It is because I no longer experience expression as a social obligation. For me, sharing is often a form of self-clarification: a way of recording a thought, registering a feeling, or giving shape to an intuition. Once expressed, it has fulfilled its purpose. I no longer feel compelled to track the circulation of everyone else’s lives, nor to locate myself through endless comparison, reaction, and response.

What this has produced is not alienation, but clarity.

To protect oneself, even modestly, from the constant influx of external signals is to preserve a certain interior continuity. One begins to know, with greater precision, what one thinks, what one values, and what one actually wants. One becomes less vulnerable to emotional contagion, performative consensus, and the subtle coercion of collective attention. In a world built to fragment attention, inner continuity begins to feel like a form of power.

The metaphor that comes closest to describing this state, at least for me, is a kind of dual cultivation of Buddhism and Taoism.

By the Buddhist dimension, I do not mean formal doctrine so much as a practice of non-attachment. The social world offers an endless series of invitations to grasp: information, recognition, novelty, outrage, belonging, reaction. To receive all of it indiscriminately is to crowd the mind. Not every event deserves attention. Not every emotional climate needs to become one’s own. Not every form of social energy deserves participation.

To step back from that constant grasping is discernment.

In this sense, the Buddhist aspect of this posture is the reduction of unnecessary entanglement. It is the recognition that attention is finite, that stillness is fragile, and that an unguarded mind can quickly be colonized by noise. There is discipline in preserving interior quiet. There is freedom in declining constant psychic participation in the moods, expectations, and turbulence of others.

The Taoist dimension is different. It is less about detachment than about alignment. Taoism, broadly understood, suggests that flourishing comes not from forcing oneself into an idealized mold, but from coming into accord with one’s own nature. Some people are genuinely energized by constant interaction. They think through dialogue, come alive in movement, and feel most fully themselves in dense relational fields. Others are constituted differently. Their vitality depends on spaciousness, slowness, silence, and intervals of solitude. Their thoughts require incubation. Their equilibrium depends on a certain unforced distance from collective intensity.

My preference for reading, reflection, observation, writing, or simply sitting with unstructured thought is not a refusal of life. It is the condition under which life becomes intelligible to me. Solitude is not deprivation; it is method. It is how I metabolize experience, recover proportion, and return to what feels real. It is simply to reject the assumption that one valid form of life exists for everyone.

What matters most, however, is that inwardness does not have to mean disconnection.

In fact, I have increasingly come to believe the opposite: excessive dependence on external stimuli may create a more fragile relation to reality than a well-developed inner life does. A person who constantly takes their bearings from others risks becoming diffuse, reactive, and derivative. By contrast, someone who is inwardly grounded may actually be more capable of encountering the world without being overwhelmed by it.

This is the distinction I find most important. To live in one’s own world is not to live outside the world. I remain attentive to social reality, aware of shifting norms, capable of communication, empathy, and practical engagement. I do not reject the shared world; I simply no longer confuse immersion with connection, or visibility with presence.

There is a difference between participating in society and being absorbed by it. There is also a difference between being informed by the world and being defined by its noise.

What I seek now is a more stable synthesis: an inner life with integrity, and an outer life that remains responsive without becoming captive. The ideal, if there is one, is neither isolation nor overexposure, but centeredness — a self permeable enough to care, yet bounded enough to remain intact.

Seen this way, living in one’s own world is less a deficiency than an achievement. It requires the ability to endure one’s own company, to generate meaning without constant validation, and to remain in contact with the world without surrendering one’s center to it. That balance is difficult, especially in a culture organized around interruption, performance, and ceaseless social reference.

It is also a rare kind of freedom.

More than that, it may be a quiet ethical stance. A person who has learned to settle inwardly often brings a different quality of presence into the world: less grasping, less volatility, less compulsion to dominate every space with unresolved hunger. There is generosity in inner order. To become inwardly clear is not merely a private accomplishment; it changes the atmosphere one contributes to others.

When one’s own being is less fragmented, one’s participation in the world becomes less extractive.

And perhaps that is the simplest truth beneath all of this: to become well within oneself is already a way of serving the world. Not dramatically or performatively, but quietly — through the quality of one’s attention, the steadiness of one’s presence, and the decision not to add unnecessary confusion to an already noisy age.

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About the Me:

Dr. Yujia Zhu 朱羽佳 (Ph.D in Psychology) is a visionary changemaker and the trailblazing founder of For A Safer Space (FASS) — the world’s first fully AI-driven nonprofit organization — and the solo creator of FASSLING.AI — the world’s first fully AI-driven nonprofit platform with a virtual safe space providing unlimited, free emotional and life coaching services globally. A proud Chinese Canadian originally from the historic city of Nanjing, Mainland China, Yujia’s journey fuses technical innovation with compassionate activism, offering a bold blueprint for the future of socially responsible leadership.

With almost 15 years of experience in the humanitarian sector, Yujia is widely recognized as a bold social innovator, ethical systems thinker, and fearless advocate for restorative justice and inclusive service design. Her work has impacted millions through anti-oppressive storytelling, transformative holistic education, and visionary platforms that reimagine human care in the digital age.

Yujia’s work has earned her recognition as a thought leader in the nonprofit and philanthropy sector, including her appointment to the Forbes Nonprofit Council and her service on the board of Community Boards, the longest-running mediation, conflict resolution, and restorative justice center in the United States. She has also earned herself recognition as an established science-based thought leader in the coaching sector when she was invited to join the most prestigious professional fellow membership at the Institute of Coaching (IOC), based at McLean Hospital, a member of Mass General Brigham and the largest psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School. Dr. Yujia Zhu also won the prestigious Grand Stevie Award for Women in Business and is a 13x Stevie Award Winner.

A rare blend of heart, intellect, and courage, Dr. Yujia Zhu exemplifies what it means to lead with both purpose and precision. Her life’s work is dedicated to building a more compassionate, equitable, and sustainable world — one bold, effective innovation at a time.

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I’d be glad to connect on LinkedIn if you’re interested in following my journey as a social entrepreneur.

Feel free to read my leadership and management articles about social entrepreneurship on forbes.com: https://www.forbes.com/councils/forbesnonprofitcouncil/people/yujiazhu/

Feel free to read my self-help and emotional regulation articles about social entrepreneurship on Brainz Magazine: https://www.brainzmagazine.com/executive-contributor/yujia-zhu

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This post was previously published on medium.com.