Change is Change

Success in life, is one's ability to change -- as circumstances dictate the need for.  Those who make those adaptations best, are highly favored in the game of life -- and particularly, in their own living.  Far beyond the competition with every other, is that competition within oneself -- to do the best they can -- regardless of what everybody else is doing.  That is almost the secret to life -- but there are probably others, as well.  It is only a secret until one discovers it -- and then moves on to the next -- forging ahead in one's life in that manner of constant discovery.

When that ends -- it is the beginning of the end -- and then all in life begins to shut down.  So how to maintain that fire and even add fuel to it -- all one's days, is the hope of every life -- and when that is gone, it is just a matter of time to the end.  Nobody really provides a roadmap to that end -- though we all seem to get there eventually, unfortunately many before their time.  It takes just one slip, one moment of inattention, one carelessness, for all to come crashing down.  So life is a preparation to do the best one can -- because one never knows when it will matter most.

In this way, one learns not to tempt fate unnecessarily -- even if one got away with it many times before.  Eventually the car that was never there before -- appears when it shouldn't -- and then it does not matter who had the right.  Even then, there is never any guarantee of life forevermore.  So it is very important to value every moment as supremely important -- because it could be the last.  But making the best of it, increases one's chances -- and that is the best one can hope for -- always to be increasing one's chances for survival in that present prosperity.

The greatest predictor of future success, is one's present success -- and working to make it even better.  That is one's momentum in life -- that takes on a life and intelligence of its own -- as the summation of every previous thought, word and action.  There is no selective memory only of the good and unblemished -- but the good, bad and the ugly -- as the present outcome.  Most other living forms don't overthink it -- but respond totally to that present reality -- as the summation of every other moment.  They keep it simple in that way.

Even as much as we would want for things never to change again, change will come again -- but our responsiveness may diminish -- or increase, as we prepare for.  Some merely go into denial of those changes -- preferring to relive only in their unchanging memories and minds -- rather than increasing their capacity to live in the greater present possibilities.  Life has always been that way.  There is always more to do, experience, learn, prepare for greater possibilities.  That is not simply the province of the young, but all who choose to live that way.

The problem is that many give up and refuse to go on.  They expect, nay demand, that the rest of the world stay the same for them -- and that is not going to happen, never has, and never will -- so the intelligent person realizes, they have to change, and can do it better than they've done before.  That is the quality of resiliency -- or fitness to improve.  There is no fitness just in staying the same; that is merely falling behind, becoming less capable daily -- largely because it is unexercised, and thus, actualized even in the practice.  But that practice is real, and actual -- waiting for the right circumstances to optimize.

That is the proper understanding of exercise -- of the practice in being.  Practice means doing -- and there is no other.  That's how people get good at what they are doing.  The alternative is not just thinking about doing -- but not thinking at all.  Usually, one is distracted, entertained, consuming -- practicing all the things they don't want to become.  That realization is mindfulness -- and from that emptiness, can come a whole new reality -- a discontinuation of the current mindlessness.  And then all things seem possible.   That is a break from the pattern.  That is change.

It really is the most simple thing -- made complex and complicated by the mindlessness that doesn't want to change -- but to continue as it always has been -- even with its disastrous results.  That conditions one not to even try anymore.  The proper exercise should not be conceived with the idea to make it increasingly more complex and complicated (harder) -- but obviously, to make it simpler and easier -- and always possible.  And that is the problem with most exercise -- it is abandoned at the first opportunity because it is too difficult and inconvenient, rather than made more increasingly inevitable.  That would be the intelligent design of an environment for making it so.  One that actually requires change -- as frequently and varied as possible.

That doesn't have to be hard.  In fact, making it hard or difficult, makes it much less likely to be done.  Yet there is this temptation among the instructors, always to make things more difficult -- as though that is the greater attainment, rather than the ease of movement and range of articulation (expression) in everyday movements.  That -- already is impressive -- when it can be maintained all one's life to 100.  That alone would be remarkable.  Yet, as we know, most people do not get there -- in that kind of condition, which needs to change.

What needs to change, is this manner of thinking that movement must be hard, difficult, strenuous, and only for a few remaining, rather than best expressed and indicated by the movement and range at the neck, wrist and ankle -- which implies the rest.  Faster is actually counter productive -- or duration beyond a minute.  One does not need to build a machine to provide resistance through the full range of any movement; the range produces its own resistance to further movement.  All one needs to do is see that that is so -- by doing it.