Learning to Bend: The Secret to Surviving Life’s Storms

Ancient wisdom for expertly navigating life’s challenges

Nov 29, 2024

The Blade of Grass and the Oak

From various ancient cultures

In a forest, a mighty oak and a tiny blade of grass grew side by side.

The oak stood incredibly tall and magnificent. Its roots burrowed deep into the earth and latched on with great strength. It boasted its strength and unyielding nature, mocking the grass for bending even in the slightest wind.

However, one day when a powerful storm struck, the oak resisted the wind’s force and was eventually uprooted, while the grass bent and swayed, surviving unscathed.

Resilience Over Rigidity

As a young boy, I thought strength was the oak tree.

I thought it was being unphased, intimidating and proving others wrong in arguments.

But as I get older, I’m learning that strength is the blade of grass.

Strength is not the unwillingness to move, to always be right or to win.

It’s the opposite. To move freely. To pivot. To adapt.

Because life has too many moving parts for you to succeed by being rigid.

You need to be able to bend.

A personal realisation about my friend’s scary brother

I remember my friend’s brother, Derek, used to intimidate me. He was a big, scary-looking guy and a black belt in every martial art you can think of.

He used to kick his shins against trees to calcify them so he wouldn’t feel pain in his ring fights.

He was completely unhinged, but totally in control — a dangerous combination.

I was talking to his little brother John one day, who was telling us about Derek’s advice when you get into a fight.

I was ready to hear about the most brutal techniques, the spinning back fist and the roundhouse kick to the head.

But to my surprise, his advice was if we ever found ourselves in a fight:

Run.

And that’s when I realised he really was a scary guy.

Not because he was a formidable force like the oak tree, but because he was like the blade of grass. He was willing to look weak to avoid the confrontation.

He knows that “winning” in this situation can end up with you killing the person, and that “losing” can mean you getting killed.

Is that worth looking tough? Is that worth the justice or the pride?

The problem with being rigid like the oak tree

There will always be a ‘bigger fish’.

Someone who will prove you wrong or beat you in a fight. There will always be another death in the family, a financial issue or a tragedy that will destroy your run of good luck.

And if you’re rigid like the oak tree, you’ll get uprooted because you invite problems into your life — you expose weak points to be taken advantage of:

you’re not open to new ideas — keeping you from productive conversations and efficiencies
you’re not open to the possibility of being wrong — keeping you from ever being a good leader, or from learning
you can’t cope with failure — you become like a child when things don’t go your way. You are so firm in your expectations that any variance makes you upset.

Take the senile basketball player who refuses to shoot 3-pointers. As the game evolves, they stay stuck in their stubborn ways. And then they throw a tantrum when things don’t pan out.

Or think of one of those people who refuse to be wrong. They cannot accept that someone else may be right, and they die on the hill of their opinions and argue all day and night about how they are right.

These people get phased out. They don’t make it. They live an average life.

Because if you can’t remain open-minded, adaptive and resilient — life will simply be too difficult for you. There’s just too much to battle with.

Whereas a blade of grass can take all the punches life throws at it. Problems are not problems, they’re just a breeze.

When you prioritise resilience over rigidity, life gets so much easier. You begin to realise that:

Letting something go to keep the peace is strong, not weak.
Being willing to listen, learn, adapt and compromise is strong, not weak.
Being willing to be wrong, and to hear someone else’s opinion is strong, not weak.

Bend so you don’t break

“Nothing in the world is softer and weaker than water. Yet, for attacking the hard and strong, nothing can surpass it.” — Lao Tzu

When you’re stubborn, you insist on justice and always want to get the last laugh — you’re sure to encounter a situation large enough to uproot your beliefs:

a bigger man to fight you
a better chef to out-cook you
a smarter scholar to out-research you

But when you’re flexible, adaptable, calm and ok with seemingly being weak you can never encounter a situation where you are broken.

To have the strength of the blade of grass is to:

let things go
to run away from the fight
to let others feel smarter than you
take the punches from life on the chin
have the awareness that this too shall pass.
be willing to accept criticism and take it the right way.
say “Maybe I’m wrong” when you’re arguing with someone.

Ultimately, being the blade of grass is knowing that you will never break because you know how to bend a little when things inevitably go wrong. It’s being humble enough to accept your limitations (or the limitations of others) and move on.

In every difficult situation in your life, think of the oak tree and the blade of grass and the type of person they represent.

the unyielding oak: big, stubborn, rigid
The blade of grass: nimble, adaptable, calm

Then ask yourself: Which one would I rather be?

Sincerely,

eren

(PS. If you want some help understanding your natural traits and uncovering your unfair advantage — I have a free guide you can use.)

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