Embracing Flexibility.

We’ve got it all backwards. We think we have so much to teach the children in our lives, when in actuality, they are the greatest teachers. 

I am not a mother but I am fortunate enough to be an aunt. I was playing with my 4 y/o niece and we were building with magnetic building tiles. She had roped me into with her description of the wonderful castle we would build. I sat down and began constructing my side of said castle, only to be told shortly after that actually, it was better we build a farm. “But I’ve already started building a castle” I replied, but my niece was not to be swayed. So we began to build a farm. 

I began to make a fence for a pasture, but quickly realized construction would not continue as planned as my niece looked over with a glint in her eye “actually let’s build a parking lot!”. Exasperated I tore down my pasture and to be quite frank was unsure how one constructs a parking lot with flat building tiles…so I began arbitrarily creating little square blocks - hoping they were innocuous enough to be part of  whatever pivot we might be making next. 

I surprised myself with how much angst I felt each time we abandoned one plan and pivoted to another. After all it was just building blocks, a child’s game to stoke the imagination, with literally no stakes. Yet here I was, rigid in my determination to  see the fruits of my labor exactly as intended (or rather expected). 

It wasn’t until weeks later that it dawned on me the lesson she was teaching me. Attachment and rigidity permeate daily life. We set out with our goals and very easily become inflexible, considering anything less than the perfect outcome, a failure. Locking our sights on goal after goal so we can rack up our achievements, assuming that they too function like building blocks, as the foundation for our happy lives. 

But that rarely seems the case. For once success is achieved in one area, we set our sights on the next thing, an ever changing, and thus unstable foundation. 

We must embrace flexibility, and allow ourselves to be led, rather than attempting to control the outcome and always needing to lead. Perhaps we set out to build a castle, but would be infinitely happier on a farm. If we remain rigid and fixed in our goals, we may miss the very things we are actually seeking. Of course I don’t have all the answers, but I think I can take a page from my niece’s book, and go with the flow, leaving room for myself to pivot, explore, grow and change. I think we could all benefit from that.