Adaptation

I have been thinking a lot about Laurence Gonzales and his book Deep Survival, which explores "Who lives, who dies, and why." Gonzales investigates many instances when people have faced catastrophe, near death, and against all odds, have survived. He writes:

The phases of the survival journey roughly parallel the five stages of death once described by Elizabeth Kubler Ross in her book On Death and Dying: Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. In dire circumstances, a survivor moves through those stages rapidly to acceptance of his situation, then resolves to do something to save himself. Survival depends on telling yourself, “Okay, I'm here. This is really happening. Now I'm going to do the next right thing to get myself out.” Whether you succeed or not ultimately becomes irrelevant. It is in acting well–even suffering well–that you give meaning to whatever life you have to live.

Adaptability defined, in Webster's, is the ability "to adjust or become adjusted to a specific use or situation" or adaptation, defined in the Oxford Dictionary of Science: "Any change in the structure or functioning of an organism that makes it better suited to its environment." Gonzales suggests that the person who adapts quickly to their situation is the person most likely to survive.

I have been thinking about adaptation and my ability to adapt. Over the weekend, I got bummed out about the amount of time I spend commuting to work, the amount of time wasted sitting in the car, the time I could spend outside or exercising. I thought of Gonzales and reminded myself to adapt, which is not the same as becoming complacent. Complacency comes into play when I am satisified with my situation but unaware of detriments that could set me back. I have always thought of complacency as giving in but perhaps it's simply being unaware.

So this weekend I came up with ways to adapt to my commute so that I would be better able to survive.

I decided to spend more time at home in the morning. So instead of getting up at 5 a.m., eating, rushing out the door for my run, and leaving by 7 a.m., I chose to give myself one more hour of free time (hence the blog post!) and to leave the house at 8 a.m. But since everything gets pushed back an hour, I will be getting home later. I guess life is about trade-offs.

The next decision was about reading: The drive is cutting into my reading time. Instead of crying about lack of reading time, I decided to get a few books on CD to listen to on my commute. Last night after work I stopped at the public library and picked up two books. (I also picked up a couple of books for weekend reading!)

And the next decision was about training. Usually, I rush home after work, trying to beat the traffic and arrive home when Dave does so we can let the dogs out together, eat together, and go for our walk, together. However, I decided that once or twice a week it would be good for me to stop at the Mansfield High School track, which is on my way home, and work on speed training.

As I think about adaptation I wonder about creativity. Perhaps the key to survival is adaptation, and the key to adaptation is creativity.