Adaptation and Change

Every morning, I wake up and spend about 15-20 minutes doing yoga stretches. I’ve known for some time that I’m not a morning person, and my yoga/meditation time is my way of waking myself up and preparing myself to respond to the world with love rather than a bunch of grumpy grunts and moans. I need that time. Without it, I’m tight and stiff, lacking energy, and unhappy when others ask something of me; and I don’t just mean physically.

This morning, I had a very interesting conversation with my housemate Kat over breakfast. We were discussing our reasons for coming here, our priorities, and our hopes for being here. We talked about aspects of community living, simplicity, living in solidarity, and the actual work that we are doing. It got me thinking a little bit about flexibility.

All of us have hopes and goals for our life. We have responsibilities and work that we aim to accomplish. These things don’t necessarily have to change. Our hopes, goals, responsibilities, and direction of work can all remain the same over long periods of time. In fact, they can probably go without changing over our whole life time.

To live in community with people, however, requires constant adjustment to those people. Community living demands adaptation. In a community, people must be open to change; for if they aren’t, something is bound to break.

Living simply and in solidarity with the people around us also requires flexibility. It requires a constant openness to adjusting our style of living to match more appropriately with those who share this earth with us. We can’t simply determine how it is we wish to live and then set off living that way. Instead, we must be aware of and willing to conform to the needs of those around us. Otherwise, we’re not really living in solidarity with them—we’re just doing things our own way.

This brings me to my final point.

Aren’t we all in community with each other? Don’t we all share this earth together? Doesn’t what we do affect many others?

So how flexible are you? How willing are you to adjust to those around you? Are you aware of their needs? Are you willing to conform to those needs?

How open are you to adaptation and change? Or are you tight and stiff, unhappy when someone asks something of you?

For me, I think I need some more yoga time in my life. I still respond to the world with too many grumpy grunts and moans…and I don’t want to bind myself to breaking.