Be Like Water

Be like water, making its way through cracks.
Do not be assertive, but adjust to the object,
and you shall find a way round or through it.
If nothing within you stays rigid,
outward things will disclose themselves.

- Bruce Lee

That is one of many excellent quotes from Bruce Lee. The water metaphor is powerful applicable to so many of life's challenges.

As a philosophy on how to approach tasks, whether they are challenges or not, difficult or easy, it is unmatched. Antithetical to today's rushed approach to getting stuff done yesterday.

A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. A building of a hundred storeys, starts with a single brick. These are water quotes. They embody being like water. Because water builds everything over time. Like grand canyons.

I've run many marathons. I've loved the training part. And the race-day part. I look forward to race day, but I'm always very anxious. People ask me how I'm able to run for such long distances, and enjoy it. The fact that it's enjoyable cannot be understood by those who don't run, but also many who do.

I suspect that for those of us that don't run competitively nonetheless use competition to keep motivated. The finish line isn't the goal. Interesting. The finish line isn't the goal. Rather it's the repetitive motion, that slow, relentless, footfall-after-footfall pace.

And if you don't enjoy that slow, repetitive motion. And what it does to you internally. Fill you with endorphins. Calm you. Energize you. And get you to that finish line. Then you should heed Bruce Lee's words and be like water.

Bruce Lee also said the following:

Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water.
If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup.
You put water into a bottle and 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

Someone on Quora said the following about this quote:

This saying is basically to remind you to just relax, go with the flow, be present and in the moment; let things happen and enjoy that you're there to take it all in.

I agree.

There's great power in thinking about the might of water, and being like water. It means that you should:

• Not push too hard.
• That gentle force makes huge differences.
• That long time combined with gentle force does more than short time and aggressive force.
• That malleability is a greater force than obstinacy.
• That if you continue to keep knocking gently eventually the door will open.
• That to be in the present moment you have to temporarily ignore the future.

These are all very difficult things.

The tendency, when faced with an obstacle is usually to grunt and press on. But if you were like water, you'd close your eyes, sigh and then press on.

It doesn't mean turning back. It definitely doesn't mean turning the other cheek. Bruce Lee didn't. But it does insist on continually applying water-like pressure. Which we all know is soft and malleable.

Insurmountable Odds

One reason why projects fail is that the goal looks so big. And so far away.

And well meaning project teams try to break things down into smaller steps. The idea is that the smaller, digestible steps form the perfect path to the finish line. But in my experience, what seems to happen, eventually, is that the target becomes the focal point of most discussions in project meetings.

Are we still on track? Can we make bigger steps? Can we insert more force to make sure that the target is not jeopardized. This isn't water-like thinking. That is brute-force thinking.

Here are a couple of examples.

Say you want to write a novel. You pick up your pen and then you stare at the blank sheet of paper for a while. In your head, you are thinking of this epic story, where this insanely clever prisoner manages to con his way out of prison, steal a car, make his way to his incarcerator's home, to begin the slow process of revenge. The revenge, of course, takes on many forms.

But there you are, you kinda know the finish. You kinda know parts of the middle. You kinda know some of the the characters. At least two of them. But you don't know what to write.

Being like water tells you that your first draft isn't the story. And that perhaps you should just write something, and start filling up the page. Doesn't matter if your story's not taking shape. But words are getting on the page. Like water slowly flowing, eventually it finds the places on the earth that have the least resistance and it slowly carves it's route. And the water eventually becomes a river.

The words fill the page and you, in absolute amazement, realise that the story isn't going the way you think it should. Your character is weak. He's incapable of this escape. You now begin to see his weaknesses, they seem so much like yours. You can't write. He can't escape. How can he hope to do something in the imaginary world, you think, that you couldn't possibly do in the real world.

And slowly, this dialogue in your head, one word at a time. One sentence at a time. One paragraph at a time takes shape. Some parts are good. Some will be lost. Like the water that wants to become the river. It doesn't know that it wants to be the river, only later, when it has forged a path does it become apparent that it's a river.

Say you want to build a house. You have some scattered ideas about the rooms you want. And some vague notion of the shape. So you pick up a pen and a blank piece of paper.

Final thoughts

Being like water isn't a call to complacency, or not being assertive. But it's having the confidence that the single brick that you're holding in your hand is the key to the magnificent structure that you will build. That the single word you've written on that page is absolutely miraculous.

Moments to be like water are everywhere. When you're in business, or at work. If you are at home having dinner. When you're washing the dishes, cleaning the house or taking out the garbage. Fully being in that moment when you are doing that task, and not thinking of when it will get done is the key. You have a sink full of dishes. You pick up the first one and concentrate on washing it, as though it was the only dish you had to wash. The other thirty, dirty dishes go out of focus. Focus on the one dish in your hand.

Be like water. Be in the moment.