Concrete Bends. Why don't you?

I remember exactly when I learned that concrete bends. It's porous too, but I can't make a neat analogy to the human condition with that.

I was in Building Materials 2 at Texas A&M and we were going over the properties of concrete. Our professor told us how the concrete beams that hold up highway fly-overs are shipped to the site with a camber. In other words they have a shallow curve to them. This is so that when put in place and loaded with cars etc. they bend and appear straight rather than sagging in the middle. One of my friends in the class stopped the instructor and asked him if he just said concrete bends. He said yes. Blew our minds.

The material that we all take as solid, permanent and impregnable bends.

The larger concept in play here is rigid things break. This can be seen in many aspects of building construction. Skyscrapers are another example I really like. They sway in the wind. If they were designed to be completely stiff they would catastrophically fail. Rigid things break.

It is our expectations of how life should be that cause us the most pain. Undoubtedly life will not go the way we plan. We may not find the right woman until we're in our late 20s. The degree we got in college may turn out to not be the one we really need to pursue our passion. If we cling to our expectations of how life should be all we will do is suffer.

Instead we should remember that rigid things break and stay flexible. Be happy we found the right woman and have two kids instead of four. Take night courses to get the degree we need to pursue the career we really want. The more fluid our thinking the easier it will be to accept things the way they are and reset so we can continue toward our goals.

I'm not saying we should be soft and pliable. Going whichever way the wind blows. Instead be like a skyscraper. Sway with the wind and then come back to center.