“Empty your mind, be formless, shapeless -
like water. Now you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup, you put water
into a bottle, 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
An
important skill that is required when we enter real life is being
flexible. If we are too rigid to the
theories we have learned in school, then often we will fail. For most of the time things go unexpectedly in
the real world. Flexibility becomes a
key factor in the path to success one may trace in life. Relying on academic theories and knowledge
alone will lead us to the road of naiveté.
In all kinds of work, flexibility is proved to be extremely beneficial. Even in hard science, flexibility becomes one
of the key ingredients that leads to innovation and breakthrough. No wonder, flexibility is a highly sought
after quality when a search committee is searching for the right person to fill
in a position.
Flexibility,
however, is a quality that is difficult to cultivate. For someone to be able to achieve the kind of
flexibility the world demands, he or she must sacrifice a part of him/herself. One’s identity must change in order to
accommodate the requirement of flexibility.
A lot of times, flexibility means that
we will need to always accommodate. To be accommodating requires reorganizing our principles, categories, beliefs, and many other things in us in order for what we want to accommodate to fit in and achieve our stated purpose. Often, being flexible makes one be considered as unprincipled or unfounded.
we will need to always accommodate. To be accommodating requires reorganizing our principles, categories, beliefs, and many other things in us in order for what we want to accommodate to fit in and achieve our stated purpose. Often, being flexible makes one be considered as unprincipled or unfounded.
In
Asia especially, Bruce Lee’s resurrecting the old Chinese philosophy of “being
water” is hailed to the highest.
Flexibility is the most important quality one must have if one is to be
successful in life. Bruce Lee proved it
with his Jeet Kune Do technique. More than that, Bruce Lee also proved it with
his breakthrough idea in the film industry that gave birth to street fighting
style that captivates the eyes of action movie lovers even to this day. All kinds of street fighting style action
movie produced after Bruce Lee’s five silver screen movies are just following
Lee’s brilliant invention.
Now,
in the West, this idea of flexibility might be best understood in the Darwinian’s
theory of evolution. Darwin talks about
the survival of the fittest. Those who
successfully survive in this world, according to Darwin, are those who can
adapt to the environment. Those who
refused to adapt to the environment simply died. The fact that the world environment changes
and, ironically, cannot be easily changed by the power of an individual,
prompts adaptation by individual by way of accommodation. The individual needs to adapt to the speed of
change of the environment as well as adapt to the change the environment
brings.
Now,
our world today is changing very rapidly.
Such environment calls for faster adaptation. This means for greater flexibility on the
part of the individual. The thing is,
human soul can only handle so much in accommodating the environment. Too much of accommodation, the human soul
will start losing its identity. When one
loses his/her identity, the soul must take up another identity to fill the
blank space. What is readily available
is the identity of the world. When this
happens, the identity of the individual will be no different than the identity
of the world. Therefore, the person will
no longer have his/her own identity.
Just like water, its form is determined by the environment. When one becomes water, his/her identity will
be determined by the world they live in.
To
some degree flexibility is necessary.
But if it is stretched too much, it will become a compromise. The sad thing is that one does not stop at
being flexible as needed, but he/she becomes “flexible.” His/her identity is “flexible.” In order to do so, one must change his/her
identity. Such change can’t be done
without compromising his/her principles of life. Like water, there is no principle
anymore. The only principle is “be
water.” If the condition requires one to
lie, then lie. If the condition requires
one to cheat, then cheat. If the
condition requires one to sacrifice others, then sacrifice others. No principle will be held anymore. For holding on to any principle will mean
suffering. Since the world changes and
demands us to change, staying on principle will only mean fighting against the
current. The current of the world is too
big to fight, and so fighting it will result in our misery and even death. For the sake of survival, one must not hold
on to principle too dearly. Losing our
principles is allowed in the name of survival.
Often what happens is that we negotiate this internally within
ourselves. The challenge presented
before us tempts us to reconsider our principles. With the philosophy of the survival of the
fittest, and the desire to continue to live, and the push of the world, sooner
or later one will have to make a crucial decision, either to die with our
principle or to compromise our principle.
In today’s world, it is more likely for an individual to compromise than
to die in his/her principle.
Two
thousand years ago, recorded in Matthew 16:24-27, Jesus said:
“24 Then Jesus said to his
disciples, “Whoever wants to be my disciple must deny themselves and take up
their cross and follow me. 25 For whoever wants to save their life will lose it, but whoever loses
their life for me will find it. 26 What good will it be for someone to gain the whole world, yet forfeit
their soul? Or what can anyone give in exchange for their soul? 27 For
the Son of Man is going to come in his Father’s glory with his angels, and then
he will reward each person according to what they have done.”
When
we compromise our identity to the world, we might gain the world, but yet we
lose our life for the world. Once it
is lost, how can it be gained back? The
world is like a strong current, once we give in, we will be lost. Once we compromise our principle, we lose it
for good. So, yes, how do we answer
Jesus’ question? What good will it be to
gain the world but yet forfeits one’s own soul?
When we become water, we lose our identity as a human being. When we become water, we lose who we
are. When we lose who we are, we lose
our soul. Yes, we may be considered
successful in the eye of the world. But
in the eye of the creator of our soul, we have lost it all.
Is there a way to come back and
regain what was lost? Fortunately,
yes! In Jesus we may regain what was
lost. In Jesus we may regain our lost
soul. There is only one thing we must
do, to believe in Jesus. Believing in
Jesus means the opposite of accommodating the world. Since the world is against Jesus from the
beginning, following Jesus means against the world. Thus, we ought to deny ourselves and lose
ourselves for Jesus. The world might
kill us, but in Jesus we find our lives.
The world might harass us, but we continue to stand on principle in
Jesus. Thus we do not lose our identity
as the image of God. When we don’t compromise
we might not be successful in this world.
When we don’t compromise, we might be despised. But yet, we are honored by our creator. This is the only way. This is the way of grace. And this way of grace is only available in
Jesus Christ.
The world offers flexibility,
compromise. Many people, being ignorant,
lose their souls under the flag of flexibility, not knowing that the
flexibility required by the world demands our soul to be saturated with the
world. Thus many compromise their
principle, their identity, and “be water” in order to accommodate the demands
of the world. Survival and success
becomes the goal no matter what. Sadly,
such path is also taken by the followers of Christ. The bigger the organization, the stronger the
demand of the people, the harder for Christians to stand on principles. So they too compromise. Little by little they begin to shed their
principle in the name of flexibility for the purpose of survival and achieving
success. Soon, they adopt the identity of
the world and thus be conformed by the pattern of the world instead of being
transformed by the renewing of their mind in Jesus Christ.
I don’t deny that there is a place
for flexibility. To some degree we will
need to be flexible. Because we know
that our knowledge is not absolute. So
we too need to be flexible. But our flexibility
must not compromise our basic foundations of our identity, of our faith. Flexibility in the sense of creativity is a
good thing to have. But flexibility in
the sense of compromising our principles we need to be wary about. It is true that sometimes we make a mistake
on making what is not fundamental as our principle. That is why we must come back to the
Scripture over and over again to get our foundations deep in the truth, in the
word of God. Jesus is the truth.
This is a very complicated
matter. But it all boils down to whose
words are we hearing, the world or Jesus?
What do we say? To follow Jesus
by denying ourselves and taking up the cross or to follow the world by denying
Jesus and climbing up the world ranking?
What do we say? The right answer
is to choose to lose our life for Jesus rather than to gain the whole world but
forfeiting one’s soul.
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