Imagine life as a pathway. Instead of the normal analogy of uphill being your challenges and downhill being a time of coasting along fine with no problems, let’s imagine the pathway is flat and that there are different ways of traversing.
Sometimes you walk along quite comfortably. This is when everything is going along fine, at a pace that suits you. Sometimes we have years and years like this. We usually think silly thoughts like “Nothing ever changes” during this part of our life. Sometimes we get a bit bored, even.
But then there’s that moment when life puts you on top of a circus ball and you have to do some pretty fancy footwork just to keep your balance. You might go backwards along the path or mark time as you try to get a handle on how to drive this thing. What a challenge! But you might be good at it and still power along your path, hyper-attention required to keep on the ball but still travelling forward. Exhausting and requiring constant focus, but it can be done.
Another challenge might be in the form of sticky mud that tries to hold you back. If you’re not prepared to get muddy and do the very hard yards, you won’t get through. But if you angle your body a bit forward and use all the impulsion potential within you, you’ll gradually wade through this difficult patch.
Some people, though, seem to rise above change. They’re the ones we describe as ‘taking everything in their stride’. They seem to do it a bit more easily than the rest of us. I think I know how they do it.
Instead of walking, they have built a resilience and acceptance that acts like a conveyor. They still have the same challenges but they manage to keep their wits about them and as long as they stay balanced and attentive to what’s happening in the moment, their faster movement is actually easier than the walking pace. They have probably ditched some non-essential things along the way so they can easily keep their attention on the present.
Being adaptable and accepting of change, dealing with it at once rather than sitting back and hoping it will go away, is like having a conveyor belt under us making the journey a little easier. There is less energy expended when you accept things as they are and don’t dwell heavily on the past or the future – or what might have been or what ‘should’ be.
We all have a choice about how we want to deal with our challenges. We can become mired in them or rise above them. We can mark time or forge forward. We may not be able to change the path but we can master better ways of travelling along it.