Go with the Flow

 

They say that if fail to plan then you plan to fail. In her Feedback and Evaluation Speech on her Toastmasters Journey, Silva disagrees. While delivering her speech, she said that with COVID-19 we have all  learnt the lesson that sometimes the best choice is just to go with the flow!

 

 

“What do you want to be when you grow up?”On birthday parties, family gatherings, and graduation ceremonies, this is the question we ask kids. When my 6 year old cousin, Nectario, was asked this question backstage before stepping into his kindergarten graduation ceremony, his response wasn’t a doctor, or a soldier, or a spider man, as many of the kids say. Instead, he looked deeply into his teachers eyes and said, “But Miss., I haven’t decided yet“.”Nectario, just say something, anything”, his teacher said, By the way, the six year old kid was right. How can we expect from a six year old to get all of his life together?

You see, the problem with the world nowadays, is making sure that we have it all figured out, even as a kid. Overthinking, stressing, analyzing every bit of the problem, just to make sure we have a smooth future, but what about the present? We work like slaves all our adulthood, just to make sure that we have a safe retirement. We have fantasized the view of over preparation, while this may work out in a standardized test, this doesn’t  work out in real life.

As a Physics teacher, I used to teach my students  thd law of conservation of energy. It states that the mechanical energy of an isolated system remains constant, unless there are restricting forces.  And truth be told ,there are restricting forces in life, many ups and downs, which means that this law doesn’t apply to real life. Our plans in life don’t remain constant, even if we want them to.

And what do we do when things don’t turn out the way that we want? Should we get frustrated or play it cool?

This place you are right now—the place where everything seems so impossible and tragic that you would think that it could not possibly be real. This terrible burning in you. It’s not an accident. It comes with a package of lessons. It teaches us how to be flexible and adapt with change.

Let us give a chance for “Going with the flow”. No I’m not saying to take things for granted. Everything should be appreciated and used wisely, whether it’s your time or your skills! But the thing is we cannot plan for what we can’t predict and life is unpredictable. So does this mean that we shouldn’t plan? No it means that we should be like water. Yes, water!

Bruce Lee once said “Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless, like water. If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend.” No.You don’t need to always have a plan, sometimes all you need is to breathe, let go and see what happens. 

And next time, someone asks you, “When are you aiming to do your project, or when are you getting married, or if you’re buying your first house before 30,”,don’t be afraid to look them straight into the eyes, like Nectario did, and tell them, “I have decided yet”.