The Flexible One Holds the Power

Commentary

I watched my father reach his limit on my land.

We had a thousand people on the property, children running barefoot between adults deep in conversation, music, logistics, food, mud, and movement all happening at once. It is the kind of chaos that feels alive when you are inside it and overwhelming when you are not. He came to support me, gave his presentation, spent time with his grandchildren, and then left the property to go to church. It was simply too much.

I could feel it before he said anything: the irritation, the feeling of being overwhelmed, the need for quiet and predictability. Watching him, I kept coming back to something I have observed over and over again, both on my land and in the world beyond it. The most flexible person in any system ends up with the most power: not the strongest or the loudest but the one who can adapt without losing direction.

In physics, rigid things break while flexible things bend, absorb, and continue. In nature, monocultures collapse under pressure while diverse systems reorganize and survive. In human systems, the same pattern shows up. The person who can pivot, read the room, and adjust without abandoning their vision shapes the outcome, while the person who needs conditions to be just right struggles, no matter how capable they are.

I see it clearly on my ranch. Just a couple weeks before the festival, we had heavy rains and the pigs’ electric fencing grounded out. Everything that was supposed to contain them stopped working. My uncle manages that part of the farm and prefers structure, predictability, and a clear set of responsibilities. We respect that and give him space to operate that way.

But when the fencing failed, instead of asking for help or working through the problem, he handed the pigs back to my husband and said he could not do it. I know that was humbling. He takes pride in having something that is his, and when conditions are stable, he does it well. But when things broke, the lack of flexibility made it too much to carry.

I see a version of this in my marriage as well. On a busy day in the restaurant, if I walk into the kitchen and mention something I forgot to communicate earlier, it can feel like a major disruption for my husband. For me, it is just one more variable in the day, something to move around and adapt to. That difference makes me pause and ask a deeper question.

How do I maintain this ability to stay flexible as I grow older?

Because I have also watched flexibility fade. My father was not always like this. When I was younger, he was creative, adaptable, and able to move with life as it came. Somewhere along the way, structure tightened and the margin for unpredictability shrank.

My mother is in town right now as well, and in many ways, I still see her as flexible. She lives on land, does yoga every day, and stays largely outside of many modern conveniences. There is a softness and adaptability in how she moves through the world.

And still, I can see the edges. The children watching television irritates her, the crying baby overwhelms her, and the fighting between siblings sends her retreating to the sewing room for quiet. Watching both of them, in different ways, brings the same question to the surface: How do I stay flexible not just physically but mentally?

I wonder if flexibility can grow over time or if it naturally narrows. Can it be trained? Can I walk into situations where not every detail is worked out and trust myself to adapt as I go? Because flexibility is not the absence of structure, it is the ability to move within and beyond it without breaking.

Maybe part of the answer is the season I am in. At 47, with four young children, my life does not allow for rigidity. There are toys everywhere, plans change constantly, and someone always needs something I did not anticipate. The day rarely unfolds the way I imagined it would when I woke up, and because of that, I am being trained daily in flexibility. It makes me wonder if having children later in life extends that capacity, if the chaos of small children keeps that muscle working longer than it otherwise would. Like any muscle, if it is not used, it atrophies.

We are not taught to value this. From a young age, we are trained into structure. Bells tell us where to go, answers are memorized and repeated back, and there is a right way, a wrong way, and a schedule to follow. Over time, we become efficient at predictability and uncomfortable with deviation. But life is not predictable. The weather changes, systems fail, children cry, plans shift, and opportunities appear without warning.

Through all of it, the same truth keeps showing up. The person who can adapt without losing their direction holds the power, while the one who needs life to stay within a narrow set of conditions slowly loses their ability to participate in it fully.

I do not want that. I want to be someone who can walk into the unknown and trust myself to find my footing, someone who can hold a vision without needing every step mapped out, someone who can stay steady in the middle of noise, movement, and change.

So the practice is simple, even if it is not easy. Say yes to what is in front of me, even when it is not what I planned. Let the day move, and move with it. Stay in the room a little longer before retreating. Stretch the moment before choosing control, and keep the muscle alive.

Because in every system I can see, from physics to nature to family life, the outcome bends toward the one who can bend. And I intend to keep bending.

Views expressed in this article are the opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.