BECOME WATER
Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless – like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water into a bottle, it becomes the bottle, you put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.
-Bruce Lee
There are many obstacles that water comes across while it is flowing, but it manages these obstacles with grace and beauty. Water adapts to the object in front of its path and diverts its direction to continue, all while creating a harmonious sound. Is it a coincidence that our body chemistry is about 60% water? Or that the brain is also composed of about 75 percent water?
It’s no secret the importance water plays in our lives. We can’t live without it. Doctors recommend drinking 8 cups of water a day to keep your brain fresh. To keep the rest of the body fresh, having the ability to act like water in all situations will create a state of relaxation.
I have learned in life that there is always going to be an obstacle in your way. That’s just how life goes. Once you overcome an obstacle, there is a bigger and more challenging obstacle ahead. Facing these obstacles is how you continue to grow. The tricky part is how do you get around these obstacles?
Side Note: The only way to avoid any obstacles in your life is to move to Tibet and become a monk.
Let’s say that life builds a dam (problem) in your creek (life). The dam will cause most of the water to stop, and if it’s well built, it will stop all of the water. If you are persistent enough to continue allowing your life to flow and calmly meet this force head-on, the water will continue to rise and eventually will start flowing over the top of the dam, no matter how tall the dam is. For the things you can’t control, approach them as water. You will adapt better and, with persistence, will overcome the problem much quicker than any other substance.
Enough of the water metaphors; the real keyword is adaptability. Take a look at your current life and be honest with yourself on how you adapt to your problems. Do you crash into them, creating a massive explosion of water and giving up the flowing sensation? Or do you calmly navigate around, under, or over the problem, creating harmony and flow?
My dad bought a drone at a yard sale recently, and he let me fly it, even though I had already tested it out while he wasn’t home. I wanted to see how high the drone could go and performed a full-send, a very risky procedure.
My parent’s house has plenty of trees as obstacles, and my flying skills allowed me to perfectly land the drone into the tallest part of one of the trees. My dad couldn’t believe it. He automatically assumed the drone was a goner, telling me the price to replace it (massive explosion of water). His reaction was all in a matter of milliseconds of my perfect landing. Meanwhile, I was laughing hysterically because I knew that there was a way to get the drone down; all it was going to take was some persistence and outside-the-box thinking (harmony and flow).
I proceeded to get the drone down using my old high school basketball skills, and we all laughed at the situation–even though my pilot license is currently suspended.
SIDE NOTE: While having the ability to adapt will create much less stress in your daily life but, for me, there are certain situations in which you shouldn’t accept to adapt. Sometimes society, work, family, friends will try and force you to adapt to something you don’t wholeheartedly believe in. In that situation, I reflect on the quote, “Stand for something or fall for anything,” which was famously said by Alexander Hamilton. This is part of my ‘question everything’ mental construct. After pondering it from all angles, don’t adapt if it still doesn’t sit well with you. Fight. Sometimes in life, it’s necessary to have a fighting attitude, a little pep in your step; it makes you feel alive. Don’t suppress the fight if it is a scenario in which you think you can make a change for the betterment of humanity.
The Top Soft Skill
Not only does adaptability have a huge impact on your peace of mind, but it is also one of the top soft skills that employers are looking for. Soft skills are harder to teach and take longer to learn than their counterpart, hard skills.
It’s easy to see why adaptability is a strongly preferred workplace skill because when you can adapt to all situations, you don’t easily become frustrated when problems arise. You don’t let the small stuff get to you. Everything is what it is, and you try to find a calm flow around the damn.
Adaptability is crucial for fast-paced work environments, high-stress environments, and careers that require quick decision-making.
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