Flow Like Water
Passage 8 - Tao Te Ching - Translation by Stephen Mitchell
I’m sure you have heard of the saying ‘go with the flow’.
It’s a simple line, yet it holds infinite wisdom.
The other day I watched a video about how we are taught to do everything “the hard way”
and how we have been left without a model of success to follow differently.
Why not work joyfully or lovingly?
“Why must everything be done hard?” the video asks.
When we are taught hardness, the extra weight we begin to carry also makes us fall harder;
it drags us down when we try to get back up.
When we can’t easily control the things we have been told we should be able to control,
for example, the timing of an achievement or the results from a task, we may feel a sense of failure.
But could it be we were never meant to feel as if these were within our complete control?
Sure it is important to try, but when things go sideways regardless of our efforts, we need to be like water.
Water is the foundation of life as we know it, but it has properties that may be surprising.
Water, though soft and supple in nature, can be a force that corrodes even the highest mountains over time.
Its strength is unassuming and it flows freely, thriving through adaptability.
Despite its strength, it doesn’t exhibit excessive control but shows us how it ebbs and flows,
generously creating space for life to bloom.
Instead of overpowering other natural systems, water humbly changes form as it confronts new influences.
With ease, it transforms from solid, liquids to gas and does it over and over for as long as time itself.
In each form it provides different benefits for the world around it and facilitates a world
that can support a range of lifeforms and systems.
In business, we can learn something from water’s wisdom.
Water teaches us to harness adaptability and diversification.
All it requires is being open to flowing with new mindsets and approaches.
By Arabella Davis
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