Be Water <3 Fundamentals *[fuhn-duh-men-tls]/: forming or serving as an essential component of a system or structure. Here are some life fundamentals suggested by Master Bruce Lee courtesy of positivityblog.com :)

1. What are you really thinking about today? “As you think, so shall you become.” This is a rather simple concept. "Think about what you are thinking today. What do those thoughts say about you? About your life? And how well do they really match your plans for your life and your image of yourself?"

2. Simplify. Eliminating clutter, activities, tasks, thoughts, even people.. that are not so important in your life allows more time and energy for the things you really want to do and for the things that are necessary.

3. Learn about yourself in interactions. "What you see, feel and hear in other people may be a reflection of you. The things you learn by thinking this way may not always be pleasant, but they can be enlightening. They help you to see yourself and also how you may be fooling yourself. And these powerful insights can be very valuable for your personal growth."

4. Do not divide." ' Take no thought of who is right or wrong or who is better than. Be not for or against.' This is a very useful and powerful thought. It is also one that obviously is hard to live by. Why? Bruce believes it’s because the ego loves to divide and find ways to “add more” to itself. It want’s to feel better than someone else. Or more clever. Or prettier. Or cooler. Or wiser. How can you overcome this way of thinking and feeling? To me it seems to boil down to not identifying so much with your thoughts or feelings. That doesn’t mean that you stop thinking or feeling. It just means that you realize – and remember in your everyday life – that the thoughts and emotions are just things flowing through you. You are not them though.You are the consciousness observing them. When you realize and remember this it enables you to control the thoughts and feelings instead of the other way around. It also enables you to not take your thoughts too seriously and actually laugh at them or ignore them when you feel that your ego is acting out. When you are not being so identified these things you become more inclined to include things, thoughts and people instead of excluding them. This creates a lot of inner and outer freedom and stillness. Instead of fear, a need to divide your world and a search for conflicts."

5. Avoid a dependency on validation from others. " 'Showing off is the fool’s idea of glory.' The ego wants to add because it thinks it’s not enough. One way of doing that is by craving validation from others. We want to feel smart, pretty, successful and so on. And the validation makes you feel good for a while. But soon you need a new fix. And the problem with being dependent on validation from other people is that you let other people control how you feel. This creates a rollercoaster of emotion in your life. To find more emotional stability and to take control of how you feel you need to get your validation from to a more consistent source. YOURSELF. You can replace the expectations and validation of others by setting your own expectations and by validating yourself. And so you validate yourself by thinking about how awesome you are. You don’t sell yourself short. You appreciate how far you have come and the positive things you have done. You appreciate your own value in the world. You set goals and you achieve those goals. This builds confidence in yourself and in your abilities. These things will help you to build a habit of inner validation."

6. Be proactive. Create opportunities despite the circumstances around you!

7. Be you. “Always be yourself, express yourself, have faith in yourself, do not go out and look for a successful personality and duplicate it.” <3