It’s the holiday season and that means many of us will be traveling, whether near or far. Or maybe you’ll be receiving friends and family even if only for a day or so. We’re also sliding into the last few months of the year. All this got me thinking!
I’ve been thinking that one of the best ways to ensure you have a good time when traveling, or really any day of the year, is to commit to flexibility and improvisation. It’s good to not become rigid about our plans! And then I started thinking about CLAY……..so let me see if I can tie these three thoughts together in a fun and meaningful way 🙂
Being more flexible doesn’t mean giving up on your plans or folding in the face of challenges.
Rather, it means being willing to reshape things a bit. This is especially true when reshaping allows you to work with the winds and waves of circumstance, rather than requiring you struggle against them.
Some of my own best memories are the consequence of what we might call on-location rethinking: my plans became less possible or desirable because of variables beyond my control. I adjusted my thinking, aimed at different goals, and enjoyed amazing (at times, life-changing) experiences as a result.
Is this true for some of your best memories? Maybe so.
I would suggest that some goals should be pursued even when this leads through trying times and unpleasant terrain. Ideally, though, we’re flexible and open to change when we have new understandings or information.
This kind of flexibility potential can serve us well as we journey through life.
I like to think of having a capacity for malleability as being claylike, because in most cases we’re not changing ourselves so much as we’re reworking what’s already there.
We sit at our potter’s wheel, (otherwise known as our life) smoothing, bending, experimenting, and in some cases smashing what a younger, less-experienced version of ourselves crafted. We sculpt something more novel from this clay.
This new object is made of the same stuff as its previous version. It’s still us. We’re just trying out revised versions of who we are and the life we’re living.
We take the chance to sit at the wheel and acknowledge what’s not working. We can gently smooth those elements away, embracing our work into something more appropriate for where we’d like to go and the version of ourselves we’d like to become.
We must take these internal and external things into account as we shape and reshape ourselves. Yet always remember that we still retain creative control over this work called our lives.
We are the shapers of our clay. We are enormously capable of adaptation and metamorphosis. Each version of our selves is valuable for what it is and for what it has the potential to become.
Enjoy November and spending some time at your potter’s wheel!
shelli
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