Lessons in Life – The Choluteca Bridge

Lessons in Life – The Choluteca Bridge

 

“It is not the strongest of the species that survives,
nor the most intelligent that survives.
It is the one that is most adaptable to change.”

Charles Darwin (1809-1882)

In life, we are often made to adapt by force when we do not learn to adapt with love.  The current crisis and world situations are teaching us this lesson with great intensity.  The lesson is: Change, or be changed… for the world will change us for sure.

At every turn in life, we are making decisions.  These decisions affect both our immediate and long term future.  We always live in the belief that we are making the best choices.  But on what foundation are those decisions based?  And if they were the best choices, then why is it that we end up falling sick or having relationship issues?  Perhaps we need to consider several factors before making those decisions, and not just that it feels pleasant or good to do so!

Recently I was forwarded an article by Prakash Iyer about the Choluteca Bridge.  Around the same time another person forwarded me something similar regarding education and using the same metaphor of this bridge.

This bridge stands out amongst all others because it is a hardy and sturdy bridge. Built to withstand storms as great as Hurricane Mitch, but it is a bridge to nowhere… Now with the directional shift in the river this bridge does not serve any useful purpose, it has become completely redundant, not from decay or old age, but due to the changes in Nature.

Image by Giani Pralea from Pixabay

The Choluteca Bridge in Honduras has often been used as a metaphor for life, because no matter how hard we try to perfect things in life, we also have to ensure that we are adaptable to life’s changing currents. The bridge was built over the river, but once the storm hit, it changed everything, even the course of the Choluteca River which now runs beside it!

As analysts now speak of the bridge, they say; what is the point of a state of the art bridge which is rendered useless and leads to nowhere?  In the same manner what is the point of us being hard-line, stubborn and attached to anything if it is of no value at this time…  What beliefs are we holding onto today, which simply do not serve us or anyone else?  We need to ensure that what we learn, what we seek, what we introduce into our lives has a flexibility label.  For if it does not then it will be rendered useless.

“Flexibility means being able to make problems into teachers.”

Dadi Janki

The same can be said of our personality.  We create fixated thinking, we start to believe that we are great, professional, educated, master at this and that, but if we do not have the one quality of flexibility then no amount of education or pedigree can help us maintain our peace and happiness.  Change will hit our lives just like a storm, and today we have all experienced this with the arrival of the global virus, and the virus of fear.  No one’s life is the same, and everyone has found themselves having to adapt, willingly or not, to the impact of this change.

Flexibility and adaptability are the keys to survival in any age, and that includes our modern age.  The only constant is change and if we cannot change, then we, like the Choluteca Bridge will become something of a relic from the past.

So, education is important, not just the book learning, but developing our intuitive strengths along with the capacity for critical thinking, to be able to think about alternative ways around a problem.  We have to evolve with the times, we have seen this with all these paradigm shifts that we are witnessing all over the world.  What may have held true for many years, simply cannot be relied on to work at all now.  And of course we have the environment which is constantly changing.

Perhaps, these are some of the lessons we have to learn from Nature, that we have to change and adapt to survive.  If we do not learn how to adapt, we may well find ourselves stranded in the middle of nowhere, just like this bridge, a master piece of architectural design, but with nowhere to go.  Quite simply, we will find ourselves living a life without purpose.  For many people this time has been an opportunity for a total re-think about themselves and the meaning of their life.

Image by Thomas Ulrich from Pixabay

Nature, one of the most powerful forces in the world is constantly teaching us new ways to adapt.  Because Nature is a mighty force, and is no respecter of our past history, man’s intellectual ego or the brilliance of science.  Nature carves Her name upon the Earth, and there is no force in the world to resist Her power, and the bridge to nowhere is proof of that.

It’s Time… to learn how to flow with the changing times…  to adapt and to learn the lessons in life.

 

 

© ‘It’s Time…’  by Aruna Ladva, BK Publications London, UK

 

 

 

 

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Rajesh k

So appropriate…w time sand v Inspiring