Lessons from Philosophy of Water | Raymond Tang | Day 43 – 100 Days 100 Thoughts

Hello Folks !!

Last year, I posted about this beautiful book called Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu. That was a treasure and I loved the book so much. I wanted to talk about each page in detail as it had much more to discuss. I loved many specific parts and mentioned in my post that I will speak in detail and share quotes from that book more often, but then like every other time I missed it. Talk about missing a plan will take a series on its own, so let us stick to this post. But then later I came across this TED Talk by Raymond Tang titled “Be humble — and other lessons from the philosophy of water”. This somehow reminded me of the book and voila it was about that book. The Speaker talks about how a verse from Tao Te Ching helped him understand, learn, and live life better. Watch this wonderful talk by Raymond Tang in the link below.

Welcome Back !!

Raymond says that three lessons he learned from Water are Humility, harmony, and openness to change. I would like to talk in detail about all these three points individually.

Being Humble !!

We have seen numerous talks about being humble. All those being humble talks about how I don’t brag about my work and how I keep it low but here, Raymond talks something much more fascinating and interesting. I am sharing this interesting part about being humble from the talk below.

He says that helping others makes him discover much more in life. This is what we fail to notice most of the time. By helping others, by celebrating others we not only become a better person but we are honing ourselves for something much more than we can even imagine. When you teach your tricks and knowledge to others you learn to one-up yourself to stay relevant. Also, this makes you open to learning more and makes you a better person.

Being in Harmony !!

Being in harmony is the most important thing. We always want to prove something, we want to succeed, we want to become someone we are not for the reason we don’t know. We are completely consumed by the notions of the public and we are not happy with ourselves. We need to attain inner peace and only then we can travel nonchalantly. This helps in enjoying the journey, helps in observing the environment, and appreciate the beauty around us. Understanding ourselves and learning to accept ourselves is the key and by this, we can attain peace. This helps in savoring our journey better.

Being Open to Change !!

This is one of the most important lessons from the speaker. Bruce Lee says “be shapeless like water“. It takes the shape of the container and be flexible like that. Raymond says water can be solid, liquid or gas depending on the temperature. Be like Water, be open to change, and adapt according to the environment. He says that people who are open to unlearn, relearn, and adaptive to changing circumstances are succeeding in all the hackathons which shows the need to be open. Openness is something necessary right now to be excel in your life and career.

On a concluding note, Be humble, be in harmony and be open to change or in simple words – be like water and lead a better life, become a better person and savor every moment in your life.