Be Like Water

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

Water is capable of taking any shape. When running, it can either sweep cars down a street or help one meditate. It accepts the world for what it is and makes no conscious effort to change it, yet over many steady years of work or with great momentum it can change the world. It possesses great power but is formless and simple; it takes the easiest, most efficient route to its destination. How can being like water help you?


What sort of terrible things could happen to you? You could lose your job. You could lose a loved one, lose respect in the eyes of someone you admire, lose friends, lose money, possessions, confidence. Everything we have, we can lose.

But what can't you lose?


My abnormal psychology professor said that he lived without expectations. That way, he could never be disappointed. "Oh, my car didn't make it to work today? That's cool. I really didn't expect that."

There are two kinds of people I've noticed that come across as strong and confident at work. On one side you get the people who care a lot, and work their a$$e$ off to get there. But when something goes wrong, they get tied up in it. The guy you know who was devastated he didn't get a promotion or award. The girl who prepares to throw this huge party and only a few of her friends show up. They succeed because they work hard.

The other kind of people are the people that don't care. Or, to put it bluntly, DGAF. That's the prankster that's always messing around in class and doesn't care he gets in trouble. The guy where everything seems to come so easily. Who isn't rattled by the thought of giving a speech in front of a thousand people. They succeed because they have little to no fear of failure and, if failure occurs, can rebound quickly cuz they didn't care too much to begin with.

So if I were to make some supermutant hybrid of these personality types, add in some Chemical X, and have a result, it'd be this: complete detachment results, paired with the willpower to work hard. Resulting from this is a hyper-powered Zen master of his circumstances capable of anything... well... perhaps a slight exaggeration. But even so, it seems to be a good combo.

The catch here is that it's tough to do. It's difficult to accept failure after working so hard, and it's hard to get motivated to do anything if you don't care. Just flow with it. Like water. I'll see how it works.