When I began considering the major shifts I needed to make in how I related to the word “easy,” the three distinguishing factors became quickly apparent. Eliminating time as a boundary for what makes something easy or not was an obvious one and relatively easy to write about.
The second factor—easy is fluid—has proven to be a lot more difficult to put into words. Fortunately, an old habit and a lot of serendipity saved the day.
That old habit is reading widely—from science and nature to business and marketing to philosophy and behavioral science. Two weeks ago, Maria Popova of Brain Pickings published a new article about Bruce Lee. In it, she linked to an article she wrote in 2015 about Bruce Lee’s “be like water” philosophy.
Down the rabbit hole I went.
The origin story of Bruce Lee’s insight was described in Bruce Lee: Artist of Life:
After spending many hours meditating and practicing, I gave up and went sailing alone in a junk. On the sea I thought of all my past training and got mad at myself and punched the water! Right then — at that moment — a thought suddenly struck me; was not this water the very essence of gung fu? Hadn’t this water just now illustrated to me the principle of gung fu? I struck it but it did not suffer hurt. Again I struck it with all of my might — yet it was not wounded! I then tried to grasp a handful of it but this proved impossible. This water, the softest substance in the world, which could be contained in the smallest jar, only seemed weak. In reality, it could penetrate the hardest substance in the world. That was it! I wanted to be like the nature of water.
Suddenly a bird flew by and cast its reflection on the water. Right then I was absorbing myself with the lesson of the water, another mystic sense of hidden meaning revealed itself to me; should not the thoughts and emotions I had when in front of an opponent pass like the reflection of the birds flying over the water? This was exactly what Professor Yip meant by being detached — not being without emotion or feeling, but being one in whom feeling was not sticky or blocked. Therefore in order to control myself I must first accept myself by going with and not against my nature.
And then, the most important point as it relates to reorienting myself around what it means for something to be “easy” appeared:
Water has no shape of its own but molds itself to the receptacle that contains it.
Conventionally, “easy” is a concrete word. It’s immobilized inside the rigid receptacle known as “comfort.” As such, there is a dichotomous relationship between easy and hard. There is no in-between. If something is comfortable, it’s easy. If it’s not, it’s hard.
When we choose to instead relate to “easy” as fluid and molding itself to whatever receptacle contains it, we can start making conscious choices about the receptacle itself.
Remember, what we’re aiming for at Enuff is to make the best choices the easiest choices. Therefore, the logical next step is to remember that the receptacle we always want “easy” to mold itself to is the receptacle known as “best choice.”
The “best choice” receptacle can take any shape and size. It can be as small as brushing your teeth twice a day or as big as completely eliminating trash from your consumption habits. In both cases, with “easy” being fluid, we can see ourselves making both choices with ease.
Can you imagine never needing to throw a piece of trash away for an entire year? And, feeling like it’s easy? Me neither, yet. But, that’s the adventure I’m excited to go on and why Enuff is such a passion project of mine.
So, easy is infinite and fluid. With one more distinction to go, we are on the cusp of putting this into tangible practice 😊.