Protect your downtime: why recovery is the key to resilience
What can something as simple as water teach us about resilience?
According to Bruce Lee, everything.
“Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.”
It’s in our nature to try to control our surroundings. But Lee, a famous martial artist, film star and cultural icon, understood that there is power in mastering the art of detachment.
In many ways, Lee’s philosophy has less to do with “toughing” things out and more about balancing our energy — of becoming flexible instead of trying to exert our will. And this easily applies to our tendency to overwork ourselves.
While startup culture often glorifies the 24/7 hustle, one of the biggest misconceptions about building more resilience at work is that we have to gut things out, when in reality, it’s about taking the time to fully recharge.
