the musings of this nigerian gal

If adaptability is a skill then rigidity is not!

It was a twitter space held by the NGO, where I volunteered. Our founder was breaking down the big jargon of 21st century learning skills and when she came to Flexibility and Adaptability she said something that stuck with me. It was actually a simple thing, but it brought an eureka moment.

She said, “if flexibility and adaptability is a skill, then rigidity is not.”

It made me pause. It sounded like such a bold statement I had to turn to God and check what was his take on it.

Was rigidity completely always a liability?

Was it in every scenario that being rigid is a bad thing?

Was there no place for rigidity?

Here’s his response — brace yourself, you’re about to be shocked.

“No.”

“No, there’s never a time that rigidity is an asset.”

“No, being rigid is always a bad thing.”

Let’s break it down. What are the areas in life that a man has to decide between flexibility and rigidity?

We have relationship with God, relationship with men (family, friends, acquaintances, strangers, enemies), business/career, finances, health e.t.c.

I’ll start with relationship with God and this is perhaps the most important place where we have to learn flexibility.

Jesus in John 4 says that the Father seeks for worshippers who will worship in spirit and in truth. God was literally inviting a woman who has only known the rigidity of laws and rites to something more fluid, more pulsing, more alive than she had ever known. 

You see, there is a reason why after we give our lives to Jesus, we receive the Holy Spirit. Christianity is a life lived in response to the Spirit within.

My favorite description of Christians is in John 3 where Jesus likened us to the wind. He said, “the wind blows where it wishes, and you hear the sound of it, but cannot tell where it comes from and where it goes. So is everyone who is born of the Spirit.”

I’ve said it before. People shouldn’t be able to make sense of your life. Lives that they make sense of are those that fit into nice, little boxes.

The God you are interacting with, with whom you intercourse consistently is the one who says, “For My thoughts are not your thoughts, Nor are your ways My ways. For  as the heavens are higher than the earth, So are My ways higher than your ways, and My thoughts than your thoughts.”

How can you think you can approach him with rigidity?

Bill Johnson says, “The Bible is the absolute Word of God. It reveals God; the obvious, the unexplainable, the mysterious, and sometimes offensive. It all reveals the greatness of our God. Yet it does not contain Him. God is bigger than His book…while God will not violate His Word, He often violates our understanding of His Word. Remember, God is bigger than His book. The Bible does not contain God; it reveals Him.”

If I’m to talk about how you can’t be rigid with human beings, I have to start by saying it is easier to get a goat to do what you want every single time than it is to get human beings to cooperate.

For a goat, all you need to cajole it is to give it food. But humans? You see that thing in the skull called the center of reasoning? It is human’s greatest asset. It is also what makes human beings the most unpredictable creature ever created.

C.S Lewis said, “God created things which have free will. That means creatures which can go either wrong or right.”

Tell a human that the sky is blue and he will ask why. Tell a human to take the left route and she will argue that the right is the fastest way to get to her destination.

In a post written by a friend, she said, “My parents weren’t strict enough to give us such specific instructions. And even the ones they did give, my first instinct wasn’t to obey. I’d first disobey. Then, I’d weigh the consequence of the disobedience against the benefit of the action itself.”

It is just the way of humans. Humans are the only variable when everything else is a constant.

You’d think you’ve seen all there is to this person only for her to show another side. Why do you think there’s something called midlife crisis?

Rigid with humans? If you want to live long, better start learning how to ebb and flow with the ocean called humanity.

Let me just end it here. If I enter flexibility and adaptability in business and career, we won’t leave here.

I’ll just say this one thing though. Your business/career is a living entity. What are the characteristics of living things? MR NIGER D. What is the I? Irritability, the ability to respond to stimuli, to respond to its environment.

Which business have you seen that maintain relevance across generations? Is it not the one that knows how to change with the flow of time? Aren’t the greatest businessmen/investors often the ones who knows how to harness spontaneity?

I’ll end with this: at its root, rigidity has to do with the need to control. I’ve already gone on about how control doesn’t equal peace, so I’m not going to go that route. What I’m going to say is life is fluid, it’s like the ocean. You can’t box it in, you can only respond to it.