Ever heard the saying that “Life is what happens when you’re making other plans”? How do you analyze this statement? Our theme element for the month is water. What we’re noticing about water right now is that, while it seems really fluid, it also keeps a great structure. What if we could imitate this in life? When we deal with obstacles and things falling apart, we often go to one extreme or another. On the one hand, we might feel that plans are just useless. Why make them in the first place if things never go according to plan anyway? On the other hand, we might feel that if we just hold on tighter to our structure, we can squeeze out some use to those plans, even as they crumble. What if we look at that statement as though it means that the point of making plans is to make life happen. That the use of those plans was actually to move things forward, to keep our life from stagnation, to propel us in a general direction that we know we’d like to go. It’s like water. It has shape and form of its own, and yet, it can easily take on the shape and form of whatever vessel it ends up in. And without its inherent structure, it couldn’t do this. That’s just not the nature of water. It’s baffling – but even the most loosey-goosey substance on the planet, the most fluid, flexible, adaptable thing, is capable of holding its shape like no other. Just take a look at that surface tension. That, right there, is good structure, with a lot of give. Not a bad way to approach life, or martial arts for that matter.
Next time your plans are falling apart, might we suggest taking a moment to remember the wisdom of water. For further reading, check out this post with a mantra for staying present as things change.