I was listening to this meteorologist the other day. “Earth is a dynamic planet,” he said. “Everything here is always changing. No other planet is like that.”
His statement underscores one of my personal axioms: You never know when you get up in the morning what the day will bring. And I don’t mean only the weather. Life hurls the unexpected at us all the time.
I think it does that to grow us, to teach us flexibility. When we get too comfortable we sink into a torpor. The “same old, same old” lulls us to sleep. But bring in a surprise, and we’re on full-alert. All our senses open. Our dreaminess vanishes instantly. We quickly take stock of things. We decide how we’re called to respond. Should we laugh? Or should we cry? Should we reach for our sunglasses or boots?
The bigger changes teach us not only flexibility but challenge us to accept and adapt. A friend of mine, when we went on lockdown earlier this year, said she just kept saying to herself, “This is my life now.” I thought that was a wise way to look at things. It allowed her not to fight against the changes, but to look around at what she had to work with and to make the best of it.
A book I read once about making choices for happiness called that kind ability to adapt “recasting.” The author told stories about people who found ways to keep doing the kinds of things that brought them joy even when their circumstances had drastically changed. They learned how to rearrange their lives in a way that let them continue moving toward their dreams—Maybe not the form they had previously envisioned, but in new ways that could express the essence of them nonetheless.
Our culture is in the midst of dramatic changes right now, the surprises coming like thunderbolts. We all need to put our boots on and wade through it, a day or an hour at a time. Until things settle out, we’re called on to be flexible. It’s going to be a challenging winter. We need to be willing to face uncertainty and to say, “This is my life now,” and make the best of it. When things settle—and all storms do pass—we will adapt and find ways to continue moving toward our dreams.
The key is to know what brings us joy, personally and individually, what allows us to be and do what we most want to experience being, what we most want to express. It’s a good time to decide what we most value and to let those priorities serve as our compass and guide.
While we’re in the thick of things, let’s remember that each of us is being deeply touched by the world’s events. However differently we may be impacted or how differently we view what is happening, we’re all sharing in the experience of significant change. As we strive to find balance in our own lives, let’s remember that everybody else is being challenged, too. Let’s carry some extra packets of kindness in our pockets and hand them out along the way. That’s always a good thing to have on hand, rain or shine.
Warmly, with hugs,
Susan