Softer is Stronger

"Be like water." - Bruce Lee

     I've always loved the under dog in stories. There has always been something so fascinating to me about the "little guy" who triumphs over adversity. Look at David and Goliath. The smaller guy topples the giant. Or the Spartans, who had 300 men that fought against a 1,000 men. Those stories are entertaining and great. But you know, we can actually learn a lot from them too.
     How many times in your life have you felt like David? How many times have you felt like you were facing a 1,000 problems at once? If you are anything like me, I'm sure you felt like that more times then you care to count. The real problem that stops us from victory isn't actually in the odds, or in the fact that we don't have a Hollywood writer coming up with some clever way for us to achieve greatness. Nope. The problem isn't even "size". Not even close. The problem is our mind set.
     Often times we "super size" our problems. And as we try to battle these make believe giants, we lose our natural ability to flow through and around them. This also makes the problems seem even bigger and us seem that much smaller.
     Look at nature. When a plant is fluid and "soft", it is able to bend with the conditions that it is surrounded by. Wind does not break it. Why? Because it remains soft. It gives and flows with every breeze. But when the plant starts to harden, it breaks and it eventually dies. As humans age, we become less flexible. Both in body and in mind. (Especially when it comes to change!) And after we harden, we die.
      David didn't beat Goliath because he tried to out muscle him. If David tried to meet force with force, he would of lost, big time! David won because he was flexible. He adapted to the circumstance that he was in. David, like the Spartans, abandoned what many of us do every day: He didn't hold on. He didn't cling to the idea of winning or losing. David simply flowed and let nature take it's coarse. That brings us to the second "problem" area where we tend to "shrink" ourselves: Holding on.
     If you stop and think about it, you have nothing that you can hold on to forever. You can get laid off from your job or kicked out of school. Your bank account can be drained. Your car can break down. Your house can be robbed or burned down. Your friends and family can die. Your reputation can be tarnished by others. Your physical body can become ill. And of coarse in life, no one gets out alive. Now I'm not telling you this to upset you. Actually, if you think about it, it should ease your mind. Why worry about these "Goliath" things? Why hold on to them? There is a big difference between real problems and the ones that we manifest in our own mind. If we truly have nothing, then there aren't too many Goliaths then. And by consequence, we aren't that small.
     We are all guilty of "making mountains out of mole hills". (I know I am.) But it's really when we become ridged and try to hold on to things that we can't control do we lose control. We lose to ourselves before we lose to anyone or anything else. It's a natural side effect to inflexibility. When I teach martial arts, I tell my students to never meet force or opposition with force. Instead, flow with it and redirect it. And at the proper time, counter. This is a universal principle to over coming any adversary. Whatever form it takes. Try it. If you do, I promise you'll see the "under dog" win.
     Don't wait for love my friends, become it. ----- The Kung Fu Monk