Adaptable
“It is
not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most
intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.”
Charles
Darwin
Christopher Reeve said,
“Once you choose hope, anything's possible.” It seems that
humanity is in the process of learning that intractability does not
work very well. Suppose you want to remove a screw that's stuck in a
piece of metal. If you keep twisting away at it because that's how
it's SUPPOSED to come out, sooner or later, it will simply break off,
and then you're...well...screwed. But if you are patient, spray a
little WD-40 on it, give it a bit of time and gentle pressure, you
will likely free it in one piece. Being adaptable is essential to
success in almost any situation.
I have hope that all the
turmoil we're experiencing in the world today will produce something
positive. In his interview with Krista Tippet, Thich Nhat Hanh speaks
eloquently about turning garbage into flowers—“Without the
garbage, there would be no flowers.” I just saw an article on
my news feed saying that we should not rake up the leaves that fall
into our yards because they provide essential habitat for hundreds of
species, including butterflies and chipmunks. Garbage into flowers,
fallen leaves into butterflies—as above, so below. As uncomfortable
as global chaos feels, as miserable as it is for the people living
through it (and that would be most of us), it is often a precursor to
dramatic change. At the moment, that chaos is kicking up to the
surface a lot of garbage we had carefully tucked out of sight—racism,
misogyny, antisemitism, sexual abuse and misconduct, financial
underhandedness and manipulation. This nastiness hurts, but we cannot
heal what we do not see. So I have hope.
We must be adaptable if
we wish to survive. It helps to be strong and intelligent, but the
ability to adapt to changing conditions is determinate. We are seeing
this adaptation in many places. There was a clip on the news last
night about a tent city for homeless families in San Diego. Temporary
housing in a safe and comfortable environment—the idea of one man
who saw a need and created a solution. Human beings are supremely
adaptable. The children in this tent city were relieved and excited
to have a roof over their heads and food in their stomachs. Another
innovator is helping people in developing countries, who are not
connected to a power grid, put small, inexpensive solar panels on
their roofs to give them several hours a day of electricity--enough to power up cell phones and computers. Something like
that may seem small to us, but for them it changes everything. So I
have hope.
Hard times sometimes
bring out the best in us—enable us to think outside the box and
come up with creative solutions to seemingly insurmountable problems.
The power to control conditions in the world may not lie with us, but
we can positively impact the people around us. If each one of us were
doing that, how hopeful that would be!
In the Spirit,
Jane
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