Flexibility

The world does not conform to an individual’s needs, and yet for many, life is spent in a personal battle fighting against limitations and trying to control one’s personal world. The internal negotiation of limitations and the need to control is often central to our developing lives. Many factors contribute to each individual’s personal stamp of these internal negotiations: family upbringing, social and cultural environment, belief system and life philosophy, to name a few. Our personality and character are defined in great part by our particular coping style.

Flexibility is our means of extending beyond the rigidity and control that mark our earlier lives. A rigid personality that has likely developed throughout most of the lifespan is more likely to struggle with change, with limitation, and with loss of control. A necessity of old age is flexibility; the ability to succeed in accommodating the unexpected, the ability to find hope where once we saw loss or limitation. Rigidity can be understood as the need to control one’s environment and relationships in order to accommodate one’s weaknesses and fears. As we age we begin to understand and explore what emotions and history lie behind our rigidity and make a welcome shift into acceptance through the flexibility to live our lives with all the changes and challenges that arise. This offers freedom rather than struggle.