About Flexibility, Complacency, and the Whole ‘Going With the Flow’ Thing
Do you ever wonder why some people get stuck in a less-than-great situation for indefinite time periods, while others thrive and prosper in spite of adverse circumstances? How is it that an individual starting out in a favorable environment may end up at a disadvantage, when another individual ends up being ridiculously successful regardless of undesirable events taking place in his or her life? How could you position yourself in a way that you don’t necessarily need to rely on what ordinary people call favorable conditions to live an abundant life? Have you met individuals who are able to:
a) Spot an opportunity amidst a mountain of disastrous developments?
b) Realize their dreams in spite of bad circumstances, or better yet,
c) Accomplish beyond anyone’s imagination because of bad circumstances?
Do you ever wonder, how come conformists all over the place routinely fail to see opportunity in adversity, or at least the opportunity that challenges a person to do something different from what the crowd is doing?
The last two years taught us some invaluable lessons. We got to learn a lot about ourselves, about our political leaders (nationwide and worldwide), our employers, and our friends. True, some of us lost friends, but also gained friends from unexpected avenues. After all, there are many ways and good reasons to clean house, reduce liabilities, and acquire assets in your health, spiritual life, career, finances, or relationships. Sometimes, circumstances help you; other times, you must push yourself with this process by visualizing and creating or organizing your own environment for lasting success.
Personally, I saw a wide array of circumstantial interpretations of three basic notions or concepts, which can either drive you to achieve amazing results, or lead you straight into the ditch, and that applies to every single life aspect mentioned above. Here they are: flexibility, complacency, and the common denominator (my absolute favorite), going with the flow.
To place these in perspective, I’ll give you a couple of simple examples that predate 2020. In early 2008, I had to become flexible in terms of my professional future when I saw the shrinking symphony market and decided to put myself through nursing school at age thirty-two. Once I became a registered nurse three years later, I had to further my being flexible by learning to invest at a level more sophisticated than the average person if I wanted substantial and consistent returns on my investments, which, in turn, came with an ability to handle higher risk levels. Was it uncomfortable to step up my game on time management and money prioritization skills? Hell yes!
However, I did not go with the flow in 2008 when things started reeking of a disaster due to the ongoing disagreements between our musician’s union and the orchestra management trying to ‘improve’ the business model on us. I didn’t just sit around waiting to see what would happen; instead, I invested in myself by learning a profession that was in high demand but had nothing to do with music.
Nor did I go with the flow by becoming complacent after seeing hundreds of my fellow healthcare workers in poor health and financial condition not even remotely considering changing their lifestyles or learning how to invest, just so they wouldn’t have to work well into their seventies and get completely burned out. I worked alongside people in their early sixties who looked closer to being eighty! They were working long shifts and extra shifts because they knew of no other way to pay for their basic necessities. Many of them were also in astoundingly poor health yet were teaching the patients how to live healthier… I chose early on not to follow their example with regards to their own health and money management, but prioritized on strictly learning nursing and critical thinking skills in relation to patient care from them instead.
To me, going with the flow can quickly get dangerously close to being complacent. Complacency is when you reach a certain level of comfort and then stop growing or developing yourself, in spite of seeing that your current situation may be far from perfect or even desirable. Being flexible, on the other hand, means you adapt to a situation without compromising yourself. It is a state of being closer to resilience. But then again, I am a foreigner, and English is not my native language, so maybe you— the reader — see or interpret these terms differently.
Some friends know that Bruce Lee has long been one of my heroes. Yes, he famously said, “Be water, my friend.” But I doubt you’d disagree that Bruce Lee was and still remains one of the most resilient and strong-willed individuals the world has known. That’s because he was flexible and adaptive, yet did not go with the flow if he saw the chain of events flowing in the wrong direction! In other words, Bruce Lee was not a conformist!
Flexibility and going with the flow are forms of attitude often favored by society, but it is crucial to understand that not all circumstances warrant being flexible or going with the damn flow. Complacency is mostly preferred by those who like you to stay unaware of what is going on, such as when a group of people in a position of power wants to sell you on an idea that would largely benefit them. Everyone and their mother who’s been paying the slightest attention at their workplace or to politics can give you examples of people being taken advantage of through slick lobbying, campaigning, or advertising of how much the powers at be care for you or your safety. And, when that doesn’t work, they escalate their ‘approach’ to using threats, fear, and coercion. It was eye-opening to see how many individuals succumbed (voluntarily or involuntarily) to all three bullying tactics in the last two years. Many who did so found great outlet for their frustrations in blaming those of us who did not go with the flow, by calling us uneducated, stupid, willfully ignorant (ahem!), threats to society, or even criminals… I mean, what haven’t we heard yet?! But by all means, please, keep bringing it on!
In the meantime, do you happen to be aware that the FDA — a government agency (meaning, paid for with our tax dollars) responsible to make sure our food and medications are safe — gets over forty percent of its funding from private drug companies that depend on said agency for the approval of their products? Do you know that the same is true when it comes to the animal and processed food industries with regards to the food you buy, eat, and offer to your loved ones? Are you aware that the food recommended and approved by this same government agency contains ingredients that cause chronic diseases leading to multiple organ damage and death? Yes, cancer, heart disease, hypertension, diabetes type 2, neurological, and immune disorders are exactly the ones I am talking about! Ironically, these are also the ailments that bring massive profits to the healthcare system and pharmaceutical industry, as well as the leading causes for personal bankruptcy in the United States today. Do you know that the American Academy of Pediatrics is heavily funded by one of the largest pharmaceutical companies with several criminal charges on its hands, respective huge lawsuits, and billions of dollars in reparations paid to its victims (hint-hint: starts with a “P”)? If not, why don’t you know these things? It’s all over the Internet. Should you be paying a bit more attention to what’s going on around you?
Let me tell you how I learned about the over-forty-percent funding. A person whom I follow on social media had said in one of his videos (on conflict of interest having reached criminal proportions) that most of the FDA funding comes from the drug companies whose products it is supposed to regulate and approve. About a week later, he shot another video to show his followers that an ‘independent’ fact-checker had alerted him that the information was ‘partially incorrect,’ with an explanation that the FDA only gets forty percent of its funding through private drug companies. Please, help me out here and enlighten me, how can I not laugh for ten minutes straight when I know that a government agency should be taking NO money from private companies whose products it has pledged itself to regulate?
If you live in the United States, this means you and I live in the same country and have access to the same sources of information. Now, Uncle Google, of course, does its best to ‘tailor’ our choices when we search on its platform, but still, taking the time to dig deeper pays off regardless of algorithms and censorship. Have you noticed that the situation is the same, regardless of whether we are ruled by a conservative or a liberal government? If not, again, why haven’t ya? Being complacently stuck in an ideology is no longer doing us any favors. It only benefits politicians and their darling donors. If you are reading this post, my guess would be you’re not one of them. A flexible mind sees through mass deception sooner rather than later.
Our responsibility to think for ourselves is a lifelong process and commitment. We are faced with this necessity each and every time an unexpected situation comes along. Our ability to critically think is further put to the test once we detect the hypocrisy and double standards of prominent leadership figures and then also find out that few of our friends or loved ones are actually connecting the dots. That’s when we are reminded of two things: history repeats itself and people forget history. Quickly. And, the quicker people forget history, the sooner it will repeat itself!