[Daily OM]: Flexibility is the capacity to bend
without breaking, as well as a continual willingness to change or be
changed in order to accommodate new circumstances. People with flexible
minds are open to shifting their course when necessary or useful; they
are not overly attached to things going the way they had planned. This
enables them to take advantage of opportunities that a more rigid person
would miss out on. It can also make life a lot more fun. When we are
flexible, we allow for situations we could not have planned, and so the
world continues to surprise and delight us.
Since reality is in a constant state of flux, it doesn't make sense to
be rigid or to cling to any one idea of what is happening or what is
going to happen. We are more in tune with reality when we are flexible.
Being in tune enables us to adjust to the external environment and other
people as they change and grow. When we are rigid or stuck in our ways,
instead of adjusting to the world around us we hunker down, clinging to
a concept of reality rather than reality itself. When we do this, we
cut ourselves off from life, and we miss out on valuable opportunities,
as well as a lot of joy.
Just as we create flexibility in our bodies by stretching physically, we
can create limberness in our minds by stretching mentally. Every day we
have the opportunity to exercise our flexibility. We can do this in
small ways such as taking a different route home from work or changing
our exercise routine. On a larger scale, we can rearrange the furniture
or redo a room in our house. If these are things we already do
regularly, we can stretch our minds by imagining several different
possibilities for how the next year will unfold. As we do this, our
minds become more supple and open, and when changes come our way, we are
able to accommodate and flow with the new reality.