Alp Macaroni and the Art of Flexibility

I almost hit a pedestrian the other day.

This happened while I was driving in the city, which freaks me out to begin with. (All those one-way streets give me the heebie jeebies). I had a green light and the woman was jaywalking. I watched my friend who was sitting beside me in the passenger seat as her faced turned to shock, then horror, as she realized that yes, I was going to gun it through the intersection.

The pedestrian came within an inch of her life as I swept by her with a whoosh and a relieved laugh.

Such is my life when I practice the art of flexibility.

Risks are taken. Excitement ensues. People almost die. (OK, that last part doesn’t usually happen).

Here’s a little context…

I have this friend from Switzerland who I met in L.A. She was doing an English language program for three months just down the street from me, and during the course of her stay, we ate a lot of frozen yogurt together. Frozen yogurt is a relational glue of sorts. If you eat enough of it while hanging out with someone, you can’t help but like them.

Really. I dare you to try it.

So long story short, my friend mentioned that she had this extra week after she got out of school, before she was scheduled to return home to Switzerland.

And for some odd reason, I found my mouth moving without my brain knowing it (not the weird part, as usual) asking her if she’d like to maybe, possibly stay with me and my family for that week.

Before you could say “lickety split” my friend had purchased a seat on an airliner headed north. There was no backing out now.

For me, Miss Let’s-make-sure-we-have-every-possible-angle-analyzed-before-proceeding-with-anything, this was ludicrous. I hadn’t consulted my calendar, let alone my mother (who gets props for being the human DayPlanner, what with her uncanny ability to fit our lives into a 9”x6” brown book).

For those who know me, you might think I’m spontaneous. You’re wrong. I’m rarely genuinely spontaneous. According to the Gallup Strengths Finder, I’m a Strategic individual. You just might miss it because I also have Ideation and Activator.

I’d narcissistically like to think that I can come up with a great idea, figure out the best way to make it work and then act on it – uno, dos, tres – before anyone has had the chance to say “Whadayawannado?”

Except that this time, I skipped step number two.

Crap. What in the world was I supposed to do to keep my Swiss friend entertained for an entire week?!

Guess what? I made zero plans in advance. And the week was AMAZING! We did stuff spontaneously. It was refreshing. I saw places that are familiar to me through new eyes. Tahoe. Old Sacramento. The Gold Country. It was fantastic.

And I was able to do it all with my amazing Swiss friend (who, I might add, makes the best Älplermagronen this side of the Atlantic. Yum!)

I started to think I was doing a great job being flexible. (Insert laugh track here).

Then I had this conversation with my friend that reminded me I wasn’t the initiator of our spontaneity. My friend was the one who was flexible from the get-go. In fact, while in Switzerland, she opted to stay in the States for an extra week, having no clue where she would end up. She took a huge risk in not having any plans and then trusting her last week (and life – gulp!) to me.

My one feeble attempt at flexibility was in a way the proverbial straw that took the camel to the chiropractor, but it was by no means the catalyst for the amazing week I spent with my friend.

So that got me thinking: What if I was intentionally flexible? Not just when circumstances demand it, or someone else asks me to do something new, but habitually. Practicing flexibility would mean letting go of my control over my life – control I don’t really have to begin with – and just being. This would be, I think, an incredibly freeing way to live.

Less stress. More unexpected deep conversations. More life.

I’ll still strategize (I can’t help it – I’m good at it), but I’m going to try to release my control over my circumstances and breathe a little easier.

Here’s a proverb that I’ve chosen to live by: “Do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about itself. Each day has enough trouble of its own.”