A distant roll of thunder announces the coming of a storm. The air, while calm for the moment, is charged with unseen energy and anticipation of change. Suddenly the stillness is interrupted by a rising breeze. The temperature plummets as the wind builds and distant flashes of light illuminate the building thunderhead. Crashes of thunder build and crescendo. The chaos and violence of nature takes over as trees whip around like wet noodles and storm sirens scream out their warning. Unsecured items scatter in the gale force wind as the storm drives on, carving its path of destruction.
In the aftermath of the storm the landscape is littered with debris. Some trees have been snapped in half. Some have had branches torn from them. Right next to an uprooted giant, others stand just as they were before the storm, seemingly untouched.
Why were some destroyed and some spared?
The answer is simple: Those that were flexible with the storm survived. Those that resisted the overwhelming energy of nature did not. Those that resisted the change fell and died because they were not able to adapt.
As people we need to be flexible like the trees that survive the storm. If we are too rigid, digging in our heels whenever something pushes us, we burn ourselves out resisting the external force. If we say, “I’m going to do this my way and only my way”, then come up against an immovable obstacle, we end up getting stuck. But if we are flexible and say, “I have a destination in mind, but I’m willing to adjust my course if an obstacle comes up”, flexibility allows us to stay on our path and reach our destination.
If you're driving somewhere and come up on a detour because that storm put a tree down on a power line in the middle of the road, ignoring the detour and driving over that power line kills you, and your stubbornness will have ended your trip prematurely. The tree is not something that you can drive through, but if you accept the detour and are flexible with your route you will still get to your destination.
Being flexible also makes obstacles an adventure. Look at every great adventure through history. Edmund Hillary conducting the first summit of Everest, Ernest Shackleton’s expedition to cross Antarctica, Teddy Roosevelt's navigating of the River of Doubt. Flexibility is essential to what they do. Sometimes you know what your destination is but you have no idea what the hell the path is to get there. You have no choice but to be flexible.
Flexibility literally is your path.
Every one of those examples would have ended in tragedy if they hadn’t been flexible. Sometimes the story is still marred by tragedy, but there would have been no story at all without the adventurers ability to adjust course and continue paving their path.
Are there any areas in life that challenge flexibility in all things?
Yes. Morals and ethics.
As is true with all things, there is not just black and white but many shades of gray. Within your morals and ethics you find your defining lines. Your route is the flexible thing, morals and ethics are the perimeter of the map. They are the boundaries within which your flexibility works. If being inflexible with those is what causes the force of the storm to knock you over, then your ending will have stood for something noble.
Flexibility and a set destination provide the path. Morals and ethics provide the framework.