Be Like Water

Written by Matt Morris, The Unemployed Millionaire

Be Water My Friend… Bruce Lee Interview with Pierre Berton, 1971

This is an AWESOME metaphor from the legendary Bruce Lee that describes so many elements of success in one simple 38 second clip!

Obviously it’s not meant to be literal and it’s talking about your mind and your energy so don’t actually try to shape shift or anything but definitely USE this idea.

When you can allow your thoughts, emotions, and actions to mimic water you instantly gain power, peace, and control.

This might help to put this metaphor into real life useful perspective:

Water can flow – Go with the flow and don’t try to change the environment if it serves a purpose.

Water can create – Water is an essential part of life. When you add it, life forms. When you remove it, life ceases to exist. When you add your energy in the form your creativity, thoughts, emotions, and actions you create. When you don’t add them nothing is created.

Water can open new paths – When water is “in the flow” it will always seek out the path of least resistance to where it is going. It can gracefully and powerful cut away dirt, rock, and even metal to get where it’s trying to go. When you are in the flow and you find a better way, carve that way out for you and open a new path to success and freedom for others to follow!

The simple beauty of all of this it to remind us that we have the ultimate power to sharp our lives how ever we choose. Sometimes we behave more like ice than water and get “stuck” in one form or place and start to believe that is the sum of our lives. That is NEVER true unless you make it your truth.

You can create your life however you want and if you’re stuck somewhere you don’t want to be right now, take the perspective as if you are frozen water stuck in a form and place you are not happy with.

Just add some heat in the form of inspiration, vision, hope, desire, or even frustration and anger and melt that ice so you are free to flow to new heights in your life. (NOTE: It’s VERY important that you don’t get angry with your self, just get angry enough with your results that you create the drive to change them)

Then you can flow in to the container of success, happiness, peace, freedom, vibrant life, and fulfillment! (How ever you define those)

It’s a very simple concept that is easy to understand that happens to fit perfectly with how we create success in our lives.

And the bottom line lesson here is to remind ourselves that WE not only have the power and ability to create our lives how ever we desire, but we are the ONLY people creating our own lives PERIOD!

Take a look at your life today and if you are happy with what you’ve created, celebrate and smile and show gratitude. If you are not happy with what you have created, start thinking about your energy as a chunk of frozen ice that simple needs to be melted so you can easily flow into new results.

But most of all, know with 100% certainty that YOU and ONLY you have the total ability to take on whatever shape, or form you desire. The pot doesn’t become the water, the water becomes the pot…

Water is a great teacher that shows us how to move through the world with grace, ease, determination, and humility.

The journey of water as it flows upon the earth can be a mirror of our own paths through life. Water begins its residence on earth as it falls from the sky or melts from ice and streams down a mountain into a tributary or stream. In the same way, we come into the world and begin our lives on earth. Like a river that flows within the confines of its banks, we are born with certain defining characteristics that govern our identity. We are born in a specific time and place, within a specific family, and with certain gifts and challenges. Within these parameters, we move through life, encountering many twists, turns, and obstacles along the way just as a river flows.

Water is a great teacher that shows us how to move through the world with grace, ease, determination, and humility. When a river breaks at a waterfall, it gains energy and moves on, as we encounter our own waterfalls, we may fall hard but we always keep moving on. Water can inspire us to not become rigid with fear or cling to what’s familiar. Water is brave and does not waste time clinging to its past, but flows onward without looking back. At the same time, when there is a hole to be filled, water does not run away from it in fear of the dark; instead, water humbly and bravely fills the empty space. In the same way, we can face the dark moments of our life rather than run away from them.

Eventually, a river will empty into the sea. Water does not hold back from joining with a larger body, nor does it fear a loss of identity or control. It gracefully and humbly tumbles into the vastness by contributing its energy and merging without resistance. Each time we move beyond our individual egos to become part of something bigger, we can try our best to follow the lead of the river.