FLEXIBILITY 101

If I could, I would take a class that would give me an education on the #1 important ingredient to life, health and the pursuit of happiness. And that ingredient I would learn would be called:

FLEXIBILITY

My highly educated teacher would lecture on the following statement:

"We all realize that there are more than just ONE important ingredient to life just like there's more than one important ingredient in chocolate chip cookies. Take flour for example... flour is usually the first ingredient listed on the recipe requirements for cookies. We all know that. Another important addition is baking soda because it's vital to the leaven needed to produce a slight raise in the structure of the cookie itself. The chemistry the baking soda produces causes the cookie to manufacture fibers in which it raises at a certain temperature and then conforms and holds to the shape it grew to. We also need sugar. Sugar appeals to the taste buds and takes the cookie out of the "health food" category and puts the cookie in a "dessert food" category. This is important to the life and welfare of the cookie because how many meals in our country today automatically offer a "health menu" at the end of the entree? None. But you will find a "dessert menu" offered at most diners today. This is important to the production and consumption of each individual cookie destined to be created. But chocolate... chocolate is vital to the purpose, the value and the final completion of the chocolate chip cookie. What would the blend of flour and baking soda and sugar be without chocolate chips? It would be a lump of flour, baking soda and sugar. This is proof we need chocolate, students."

Of course, the point of the professor would be understood by all and it would so obviously apply to the topic in our class that day: Flexibility. It would also apply to any student studying how to become a professional chocolate chip cookie maker. And it would appeal to the general public that insists on funding the production and education of good chocolate. It would be a great class to take because so many people with so many different educational pursuits, could benefit from such a knowledgeable professor.

The tests I'd take after that class would reflect my understanding of the concept of Flexibility through the professor's thorough presentation and I would probably pass the test with flying colors... like a parrot passes by high in the sky.

My education of this would give me strong beliefs that being flexible should effect our everyday life like the h2O we drink effects our general health. Without flexibility, we will never learn how to bend over backwards. And we all know how handy it is to bend over backwards when we need to reach the floor behind us without turning around

Flexibility will influence the following:

How and when we look at freedom... "Do I need this shower or am I just looking for a break?"

How and why we look at fat... "Do I need to lose weight or do I just not like the way my stomach bulges and folds and hangs over my waistline."

How and where we look for fun... "Is there true purpose in an expensive vacation or do I just not like getting the mail everyday?"

How and what we call our favorite... "Am I eating this ice cream because I like it or is it truly my favorite?"

These and other attributes play into how we're flexible.

When we're flexible, we eat ice cream because we need a break and can't find the bathroom under the pile of toilet paper the two year old piled in the toilet.

When we're flexible, we walk to the mailbox every week or two so we can check the "in a weekly exercise program" box on the doctor's form.

When we're flexible, we enjoy noticing the way fat clings to our bodies like a school of jelly fish because it helps take our mind off the beach side vacation we'd really like to go on.

When we're flexible, we enjoy being cooped up for days in our house with sick kids because we embrace the slogan, "Freedom is never free."

Flexibility lends itself in many different ways to our perspectives, our entertainment views, our attitudes and our over all mental health.

Like when your daughter comes gasping and banging and pounding on the door, hardly able to catch her breath so she can scream hysterically tenderly call for her mother. And you get to the door and you find her wildly hopping on her feet like she's painfully jumping on hot coals. You notice she's gasping and huffing like something horrible is happening and you realize she's possibly getting her feet chopped off. And so you ask her what's going on in her young little life as she bounces energetically in a six foot circle on the cement porch floor. And you ask with concern in your voice because you care for her well being and you want her to know that you really do think she's a normal child. You articulate your question carefully as if an acting-out-of-her-mind-child would be able to answer your question sanely because you enunciated the 't' in "WHAT HAPPENED."

And she replies in a breathy way, like a jogger sounds when they're jogging, "H-h-h-h I h-h-h-h-h-h h-h-h-h-hurt h-h-h-h-h-h-h my-hhh-h-h-h fo-h-h-ooo-h-h-ttt h-h-h-h-h." (translated: I hurt my foot.)

You observe her with a keen eye and notice that the foot she's huffing about would have to include at least one of the two feet she's bouncing wildly on.

Because you forgot that stand up comedy usually has some form of sense and sanity to it, and you really don't want to go crazy from all the excitement your children cause in your life, you find yourself laughing hysterically that your child would choose to express her pain in such an energetic and healthy way. While using the banged up, chopped off foot to propel her into the air.
Flexibility gives you the ability to accept the comedy of the situation as you turn to go back inside the house while your banged-up-foot-child bounces off the porch and down the steps, nursing what she believes to be a badly hurt foot. While jumping on it.

Flexibility forces you to see the obvious when all you notice is everything that's not there. Like when your son drills you about the moon as if he thinks you're some scientist or something. He begins a breathless string of questions on if the moon could crush the house and what would happen if you shot the moon and does the moon roll and how does the moon just stay up in the sky and does it just 'stick' there and how big is the moon and can you shoot the moon, can you?

Flexibility helps you see that your child is not a mad scientist even if he has every indication of becoming one.

Flexibility helps you understand the deep and vast brain behind the erratic and usually irrelevant questions.

Flexibility helps you embrace the opportunity of gazing lovingly into the pool of dark brown eyes that look up to you and sincerely believe with all their heart that you, of all people, are the wealth of knowledge they've been searching for all of their 5 little years of life.

Flexibility is such a great tool to carry through life and something everyone should get a PHD on. An education in Flexibility would give great resume references because everyone would want to hire the Flexibility person.

But, I would learn that Flexibility forces you to understand that you will probably never be able to take a class on Flexibility because there is no class out there devoted primarily to the topic of Flexibility. Flexibility is just too hard to teach. Frankly, flexibility does not fit in a box or a text book. It's just too flexible to do so.

But by accepting this hard, cruel fact, I am proving my understanding of Flexibility.

And I'm flexible enough to accept that I will never get an education on the #1 important ingredient for life: Flexibility.