Adaptation

Responding to life

“The reasonable man adapts himself to the world; the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore all progress depends on the unreasonable man.’’

— George Bernard Shaw, Irish playwright

The world we’ve constructed, created, and coerced for ourselves is far from the real world — the raw, raucous, rough one. The scorching sun has yielded hats, sunglasses, and air conditioning. The wild wind has produced walls and sturdy shelter. The flurry of snow has demanded coats, shovels, and furnaces. The crashing rain has created umbrellas, windshield wipers, and rubber boots.

We’ve gone to unmatched lengths to configure our environment to our liking — to make our life easier, better, more comfortable, more enjoyable. But Nature — that other force, God you can say — is unrelenting and unremitting, in that She will be the aggressor, She will be the decision-maker, She will call the shots, She will make Her impact — sometimes mercilessly.

We want things a certain way, and we’re pretty inflexible in that:

• We want our car to have all the bells-and-whistles — the leather seats, the blind-spot detector, the heated seats, the phone connectability, Sirius XM radio.
• We want our house with all the best appliances — the mega fridge, the state-of-the-art stove, the best microwave, the newest thermostat.
• We want all the gadgets — the 48" flat-screen for ‘the games,’ the Xbox One for Madden, the Macintosh desktop for the office, the 2nd Edition Amazon Echo for your beck-and-call.
• We want our orders just the way we like it — an iced coffee with two creams, two Sweet’n Lows, and light ice; a steak — medium-rare, with fries — well-done; a vanilla ice cream, in a dish, with a waffle cone, and extra rainbow sprinkles.
• We want our clothes to fit to the precise form of our figure and our shoes to fit like Cinderella — size medium, 39" for the chest, 15 1/2" around the neck; size 12, wide, the black ones.

Whether we admit it or not, we’re all so picky-and-particular; put in other words, we’re spoiled. We get what we want (and if we don’t), we’ll make quite an effort to get it in due time. By being in this mode, admittedly or not, conscious of it or not, it gets tiring, it becomes taxing, it will take a toll.

Say:

• Half of our speaker in our car gets busted.
• The stove clock stops telling-time.
• The newest phone comes out and we don’t have the funds to go-and-get it.
• They’re out of iced coffee; or, They’re out of rainbow sprinkles.
• They’re out of your shirt size; or, They’re out of your shoe size.

What if (for the sake of argument) we adapt ourselves to what happens, especially to the things out-of-our-control? — like what Nature decides to do, like to God’s-calling, in alignment with Fate. What would that do for us? Why would we be compelled to take that route?

Adapting, and thus accepting, these minor inconveniences can become habitual, ingrained, and part of your life philosophy and ruling principle. This will prepare and strengthen you for the — frankly — bigger, more onerous, and rattling of challenges approaching: the lay-off, the family death, cancer, a serious accident, a DWI.

I think it’s somewhat irrefutable that Life is change — at the very least, change is a cornerstone, an integral component of what we call Life. With that as true, the ones who will flow — if you will — morph with the way things transpire, will live with less resistance, less angst, less frustration, less disillusionment, and even more peace and happiness.

Shaw points out about the reasonable: They make progress. They survive. They stand strong. So, the reasonable find the reason, the point, the purpose in everything. They chase after it. They dig for it. They uncover it. They hold it. They use it. And they keep going, they keep grinding.

• Got let-go? Let’s find a better job.
• Mom died? Love dad double.
• Cancer’s here? Fight to the death.
• Crash cracked some ribs? Be a warrior.
• Got caught driving drunk? Pay for it and don’t complain or blame anyone.

The reasonable sees everything as reasonable. The reasonable sees the rational, the logical, the purposefulness, the meaningful in it all.

By adapting oneself, we can withstand life’s pitfalls, we can extract the concealed (and many times undetected and unsearched for) reason that’s interwoven, and — ultimately — we can forge forward to make progress like:

• The entrepreneur who goes bankrupt but who works his way back and makes quite a name for himself.
• The athlete who tears his ACL, who rehabs, recovers, and comes-back better, stronger, more hungry and determined than before.
• The mother who miscarries twice but stays positive and focused, and successfully delivers thereafter and is devoted to loving and nurturing her baby with unparalleled and unwavering conviction.
• The aspiring author who gets rejected — unforgivingly — publisher-after-publisher; yet, against the odds, keeps at it — editing, writing, rewriting, adding — to meet her goal.

With “The Act of Adaptation,” we can now bask in the sun, whirl in the wind, play in the snow, and dance in the rain.