Thoughts on Adaptability

Adaptability is a life process.

Some might call it a fundamental law or perhaps a universal law, but whatever the terminology, it is as necessary to sustaining human life as air and water. Every second of every hour our bodies and our thoughts are adapting and changing. We are adapting every time we meet a situation for the first time, because if we weren’t, progress would cease to exist and we would not get anything done or create anything new.

Everything is in motion, including you.

When we adapt ourselves to a different circumstance, lifestyle, community, or environment, we adjust and modify the core of who we think we are to fit the new requirements and conditions, closer to becoming who we are meant to be.

Adaptability is about both having the flexibility and the ability to shift you from your commonplace conveniences into something that allows you to be changed for progress and potential, depending on each situation. As it has been said, change does not necessarily assure progress, but progress relentlessly requires change.

So what exactly impacts us to be adaptable? What are the external influences that allow us to adapt, and what part of adaptability is internally motivated? Psychologically speaking, early childhood programming, conditioning, and the subconscious mind are some factors that play a part of our developmental flexibility. According to scientific studies, our developmental flexibility to adaptation is not limited to genetic or biological estimation and that adaptability should be theoretically based on beliefs, skills, values, social expectancy, and past experiences.

A sociological book I’m currently reading suggests that every person has the potential to adapt to stress and solve the problems of every-day living that occur. Everybody.

When we’re willing to adapt to changes, we learn something new about ourselves, redefining our comfort zones.

What do we need to adapt? I think that adaptability takes a good amount of cultural awareness, self awareness, social etiquette, and emotional intelligence (EQ) for it to happen positively and effectively. Factors are, depending how healthy and progressed you are in those four aspects of life, you’re more willing to adapt better to new situations. There should always be room for personality, as well.

Though I’m not a Darwinist (whether it was Charles Darwin or Leon C. Megginson who originally wrote it), I think these words have a good amount of truthful thought-provoke:

Yes, change is the basic law of nature. But the changes wrought by the passage of time affects individuals and institutions in different ways. According to Darwin’s Origin of Species, it is not the most intellectual of the species that survives; it is not the strongest that survives; but the species that survives is the one that is able best to adapt and adjust to the changing environment in which it finds itself. Applying this theoretical concept to us as individuals, we can state that the civilization that is able to survive is the one that is able to adapt to the changing physical, social, political, moral, and spiritual environment in which it finds itself.

Personally, I recognize my own ability to adapt in different environments and people over the years as I travel more, am open to new experiences, and change the course of my existential philosophy of life. I’ve met a lot of people with high adaptability skills, especially backpackers in hostels, that also share an easiness of adapting themselves to different communities and situations without compromising their values and beliefs.

Which brings me to this thought: is there a line between adaptability and our personal convictions, values and core beliefs?

Adaptability should not be defined as a lack moral compromise.

I believe the line in the sand for adaptability should always be our values. What I mean is, being adaptable does not mean you follow everything the crowd does, or mold yourself to the environment in a way that your morals and your values get corrupted and you become passive.

That’s not adaptability, that kind of passivity is called social influence and a lack of personal integrity.

Nobody enjoys being around a person that molds their identity according to the people and environment around them, nobody. To me, that’s not only deceitful to others, but to yourself. And like I said, that’s not adaptability, that’s a lack of identity. Which is why I think that obtaining life values from a certain school of thought or religious belief system can be a helpful way for someone to maintain self-integrity without loosing their values in situations where adapting becomes necessary. And I mostly say that from a sociological perspective.

Overall, adaptability is essential. I think some people are born more prone to this kind of personality, than others. If you have to force yourself to adapt and accept something new and you find yourself miserable in the outcome, you’re probably not a very adaptable person. And that’s okay, we need your kind in different work areas, too.

From observation, people with low adaptability skills don’t get out much and don’t care to experience life in different ways within different sociological circles. Also, I’ve seen that those who aren’t very adaptable to life are experts on complaining. This is a consistent kind of complaining after said situation has happened and ended. Think about it, people that have low adaptation skills continue to complain about the most commonplace things in life.. Car tires going flat, roommates leaving half-empty cups of water around the apartment, neighbors parking where you wanted to, getting up for work early, getting fired, traffic, etc.. this is simply life. Accept, adapt, and if you can’t change it, see the good in it.

Adaptability is a good skill to have.

If you dislike adapting, perhaps sticking to a 9-5 office job wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Having a developmental flexibility redefines how we are prepared to accept and feel the changes around our every day lives. It also allows us to uncover, expand and evolve our interests, our talents, and the things we are absolutely comfortable with.