016 The Low Road
Hey Water, you go to the lowest place you can find, and that is how you reach everywhere.
What have we missed by only trying to rise?
What have you missed by always trying to climb higher?
Pour water on a hill. It does not try to reach the top. It runs down, into the cracks, into the low places.
And a few days later, there is green everywhere it went.
What really happens
Water always flows to the lowest place it can reach. That is how it finds its way into roots, wells, valleys and seas.
By going low, it reaches everything.
How we know: Simple physics: gravity pulls water downhill.
The turn
We are taught to rise. Climb the ladder. Get to the top.
But some of the most important places are low: the ground floor, the frontline, the quiet person at the back of the room. Water shows that going low is often how you reach everyone.
Three takeaways
- Humility is not weakness. It is reach.
- The low places are where life grows.
- You can learn more by going down than by climbing up.
Water reaches everywhere because it never refuses to go low.
That whereby the rivers and seas are able to receive the homage and tribute of all the valley streams, is their skill in being lower than they...