When life gets harder, become softer

One of those counterintuitive but deeply true insights of life.

When life gets hard, we tend to respond by hardening our hearts to it. We write people off. We curse the world. We externalise our problems.

But this little poetic piece by John Roedel really got to me. A humbling reminder about surrender, about a better way to respond in face of adversity:

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Me: Hey God.

God: Hey John.

Me: I’m about to break.

God: Why do you think that is?

Me: Because life just keeps getting harder.

God: Then you need to become softer.

Me: Huh?

God: Here is the thing:

glass is hard
but it can shatter
easily when dropped

rock is hard
but it can be broken
quickly with a drill

gold is hard
but it can be melted
in a blazing fire

don’t be so hard
that you break down so easily.

be soft
like wet clay
in the hands of a potter

be soft like
river water
in the summer

be soft like
the breeze through
a row of tall pines

all of those things
survive no matter what
happens to them

they endure because
they haven’t built their
existence out of hard
materials

be soft with other people

don’t break them
with your words
and don’t let them
break you with theirs

be soft with yourself
your heart is more cotton
than iron

your soul is wrapped
in the softest of fabrics
for a reason

the softer you become
the more you understand
how precious all life is

be more of cotton
than you are of concrete

~ love isn’t cold granite
love is shapeless

love is like ocean water
gently passing through your toes

in a world where the hardness of diamonds
helps determine its worth

don’t become one yourself

become so soft
that nothing can
break you

~ john roedel (johnroedel.com)

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Become so soft that nothing can break you. – WOW.

Mind-blown.

It’s hard to say, even harder to do. Yet it makes so much sense if you think about it. Nature mirrors that wisdom everywhere we go. In a hurricane, the tall mighty oak tree gets uprooted because it stayed rigid, while the blades of grass at its feet survives because it was flexible. Of course, it’s not in the nature of the oak tree to be able to change when a hurricane comes. But we as humans, we can. Or rather, have the potential to change our mindsets quickly.

This resonated with me deeply because there’s an element of Eastern philosophy and mysticism to it. In the ancient Chinese martial arts of taichi, there’s the concept of 以柔克剛 - using softness to overcome strength. In the Tao Te Ching—the seminal tome for the religion Taoism—it says:

“Nothing in the world
is as soft and yielding as water.
Yet for dissolving the hard and inflexible,
nothing can surpass it.

The soft overcomes the hard;
the gentle overcomes the rigid.
Everyone knows this is true,
but few can put it into practice.”

“A man is born gentle and weak.
At his death he is hard and stiff.
Green plants are tender and filled with sap.
At their death they are withered and dry.

Therefore the stiff and unbending is the disciple of death.
The gentle and yielding is the disciple of life.

Thus an army without flexibility never wins a battle.
A tree that is unbending is easily broken.

The hard and strong will fall.
The soft and weak will overcome.”

Using softness to overcome adversity, is a great reminder. The past two pandemic years had been tough. All around, I see people hardening their hearts. People constantly finding black sheeps and scapegoats to blame for our plight. Narratives becoming increasingly polarized. People forming tribes, taking sides. It’s no longer about the rational debate about facts, but and “us-versus-them” fist fight. The rational moderates—folks like me—are now homeless. It’s been tough keeping faith in humanity. And in turn, that hardens my heart too. Slowly but surely.

I don’t want to fall into that trap. There’s got to be a third door. And this blessing of an insight couldn’t have landed at a better time.

When life gets harder, become softer…soft to the point that nothing breaks you.

Or as Bruce Lee once said so profoundly,

“Be like water, my friend”.