Adaptability

The world has turned “hi-tech”, hasn’t it? The only way to survive in this cut-throat competitive world, adaptability. Let’s see what is adaptability, and is it always good?

In life, you either adapt or perish. That, is Evolution

– Triple H

Adaptability of any organism, is defined as its ability to adjust to conditions new to its senses. No wonders here, human beings are probably the most adaptive species to have ever existed on earth. This is probably the reason why we have been able to survive massive natural calamities, one following the other, the next one much bigger than the previous one. Yet, here we are, alive and well, working on creating things that will help us survive the upcoming calamities.

Not only that, even the computers these days have become adaptive. Technologies like artificial intelligence and machine learning are so adaptive that in many of the industries, they have started to replace human beings, doing whatever we do, but better and more efficiently.

Let me brief about how this topic came to my mind. One day sitting in a class, I was wondering while listening to my professor rambling about how technology has changed the world and the way we conduct business. Me, being a former IT industry employee, started reminiscing about the days when I heard of colleagues learning about new technologies. People came up to me, telling me, “I have an interview with XYZ company, they are looking for ABC technology experts”. They told me all of this while I was sitting on my unproductive behind, chewing on food that would have done less good than harm to my body.

This is not a technology blog, this is more of a philosophy/psychology/I don’t really know what blog. So, let’s start delving into something that is a little less technical.

What were these people doing? They were adapting. What were they adapting for? Better opportunities. But what made them look for better opportunities? This is one question that intrigued me while I finished the burger I was eating and I was wondering if I should go for another burger or is the pasta worth trying now.

The answer that came to me for this question had two possible options:

1. They were happy with where they were, but they wanted to grow in life, get a better job and earn more money.

2. They were unhappy with where they were and wanted to change something desperately, so much so that they were ready to WORK for it.

The first option is great, but it also has an abundantly large number of people talking about it everywhere. The second option, however, looked more interesting to me, because that is yet another facet of the human psychology, which is dissatisfaction. I saw a trend among the respondents/people who themselves came to me to tell me what they were up to answering the question with the second option. The trend was frustration. They were frustrated due to their boss, their salary, their job location, their profiles and what not. The frustration led them to take massive action. In a way, I believe we can conclude that frustration is a possible cause for the adaptive ability of human beings.

Now, what is frustration? Frustration is a feeling that we experience when something does not go as per our expectations. It’s kind of like a tree, one of the two reasons for adaptability is frustration, but adaptability is not the sole solution for frustration. In order to overcome this frustration, what can we do? We can either change the situation, we can adapt or we can give up. Let’s take a more human example to set some context. A and B (Because the last time I used these names, it was subtle as well as conveyed the message superbly. No personality sketches this time though) are two people. A wants to be friends with B, and B agrees. Their friendship develops over time and with time, the only constant, that is change, takes over the mind of B.

B starts making new friends, while A stays where A was, which leaves A with lesser and lesser time to spend with B. A starts getting worked up about this fact and lets frustration build up in his/her head. A, now has three options, as we discussed earlier.

1. A could change the situation, talk to B and come to a common ground
2. He/She could adapt, accommodate the changes in B’s behavior and respond accordingly
3. A could simply give up, understanding that B has better things to do in their life

The interesting thing here is, A could make efforts as entailed in options 1. and 2., but it is not certain that B would be able to appreciate these efforts made by A, given the fact that B is more engrossed in their own life to pay attention to what is happening on this little front with A there. This would again lead to an increase in the frustration experienced by A.

The entire point I’m trying to make is, in life, especially in frustrating situations, it becomes important to evaluate all available options. We should always look out for if we should change the situation, adapt ourselves or just give up. It’s important that we choose wisely.

-Vibhu Vyas