Do not oppose the way of the universe

From Eiji Yoshikawa's "Musashi" - hit me very profoundly at this point in my life. I'd tried to bend reality to my will often - sometimes it worked, often not. Musashi, a wandering swordsman, went to take up farming to learn discipline, and his crops/farmland kept getting washed away every rain. From page 663 in the hardcover edition:

"Then it dawned on him suddenly. Unconsciously, he had been trying to create a neat, square field like those common in other parts of the Kanto Plain, but this was not what the terrain called for. Here, despite the general flatness, there were slight variations in the lay of the land and the quality of the soil that argued for an irregular shape.

"What a fool I've been," he exclaimed aloud. "I tried to to make the water flow where I thought it ought to be. But it didn't work. How could it? Water's water, dirt's dirt. I can't change their nature. What I've got to do is learn to be a servant to the water and a protector of the land."

...

"The same rules must apply to governing people," he said to himself. In his notebook, he wrote: "Do not attempt to oppose the way of the universe. But first make sure you know the way of the universe."