Resistance

“Be like water” is 50% terrible advice. The other half is genius.

Bruce Lee is often credited with this ancient slice of wisdom, but humans have known about it as long as we’ve known anything.

We want to be like water in that we become relentless in our pursuit of a goal: To go around anything blocking our path. To wear away the obstacles we cannot bypass through our persistence.

But water has one trait that we would do very well to avoid: Following the path of least resistance is the quickest way to go downhill.

Water wants to be the sea, but we want to touch the sky.

The easiest way to be successful is to follow the path of most resistance:

Add more weight to the bar.

Always walk up the escalator.

Learn something new and challenging.

Train in the rain.

Go to bed early.

Stop drinking.

Taking the easy road makes a hard life.

Choosing the hard road makes an easy one.