You know how to adapt! You have been doing it since you were a child. You have been adapting to a changing body, new situations, new people, everything! Yet, we still grow accustomed to current moments and sometimes feel off-balanced by all the changes happening around us.
Once you realize the most significant asset you already have is being able to adapt to new circumstances, changing times will no longer be so dreaded. Instead, play with ideas throughout your life, step back when you feel overwhelmed about the future, and find your inner adaptability. The Future is Positive!
A Wonderful New World Demands Adaptability!
Strategies to up the Adaptability Game.
Keeping an open mind can help you remain relevant in our rapidly changing world. Both time-honored strategies and strategies you invent yourself can be your best friends during changes. Adaptability is about being open to change, and whatever your age or experience, humans CAN adapt. Embrace the changes, gain more experiences, knowledge, and interactions with new people, new careers, and new ways to have fun.
Being adaptable is not about adopting whatever comes willy-nilly your way. It is about a new mindset of possibilities. To coin a couple of new terms, you “ADAPTIFY” things and circumstances by picking and choosing what works best for you and those you care about. You engage in “ADAPTIFICATION” AND DISCOVERY of new meanings as you progress more and more through the maze of life.
- Keep Your Sense of Humor: Laughter is a great way to ease into adapting to new or uncomfortable situations.
- Start Small: Begin with small incremental changes.
- Adaptation is generally a strategy in which you decide what you want on your own terms. Adaptation is incremental growth.
- Anticipate Change: It is a fact of life that changes happen; whether it takes moments or years, you need a workable strategy and a sound support system from family and friends. Sometimes, if people have become too set in their ways, they find themselves in untenable situations where they feel the need to escape. Decisions made during a precipitous escape can be less than optimum for your life goals. Of course, there are instances when a job or role ends, and you need a new strategy more beneficial to yourself and your surroundings. Looking into the future and imagining optimistic scenarios can help you prepare and find ways to adapt your life toward the best outcome for yourself and those around you.
- Develop Support Systems: One of the best ways to develop a support system over time is to treat others with kindness and respect. Take time to be with people. Customers and co-workers, unfortunately, can come and go. Give of yourself and your time. It is an investment in your future. Too often, climbing the financial ladder leaves you little time to relate in small ways with others in meaningful ways who will be in your corner should you find yourself in a sudden change.
- Live a Healthy Lifestyle: It is much easier to cope when you have built a healthy foundation. Get enough rest. Eat wholesome, less processed foods. Be active both in mind and body. Vitamins, minerals, and bio-enhancing factors like eating fermented foods and eating right for your gut can make substantial differences over time.
- Imagine Yourself Comfortable: Mentally try some new things on for size. Visualize yourself being comfortable with a change. Or imagine yourself already successful within the new parameters you need to adapt.
- Ask for Help: Find someone who knows what you need to know and ask for help. Technologies are rapidly changing, and getting help from family, friends, or a professional service can lead to finding new adaptive strategies.
- Keep Learning: It is easier to keep up with new scenarios as they happen rather than learn about massive changes all at once. Set a life goal for lifelong learning. Take a course in something new every year.
- Practice Cultural Engagement: Attend cultural events, learn to read subtitles in international movies, and you can imbibe a whole new perspective on a different culture and read books that broaden your perspective and adaptability. Many cultures have traditional strategies for healthy eating and multiple ancient wisdoms we can learn from now.
- Learn about New Financial Tools or Instruments. Keeping up with your finances will help you feel more secure over time. Digital banking, electronic money transfers, investment apps, and even understanding cryptocurrency are no longer daring adventures. Even writing cheques is almost passe now.
Financial management has changed considerably. I remember a mentor telling me how she made sure to pay her bills each month. “See, she said, “I have an envelope to save cash in for every bill. If you do this you won’t forget to save enough to pay for things each month.” Saving is good, we just have newer methods of personal accounting.
- In The Face of Change, Remain Calm: When you exercise a calm demeanor as your first reaction when faced with challenges, it gives you time to think clearly. Sometimes, giving a soft answer disarms an adversary. Adapt a “One-two punch” strategy under challenging situations. Be calm, think, answer softly, think again, and state your position. Remember, being adaptable is not being a pushover; it is finding your best path forward.
- Cultivate Individual Freedom and Sovereignty: You are the pilot in command of your life. The buck stops with you! Whatever your environment or background of support or depravity, you are responsible for what happens next!
- “ADAPTIFY” – when working on a problem, try something new. Find another way to adapt a common approach. There are accounts of researchers looking into a particular outcome but, through some happy accident, have discovered a whole new application to solve another problem. That is, to Adaptify an existing thing in a different way to create another unrelated possibility.
- “ADAPTIFICATION” AND DISCOVERY: Children often have a natural ability for the Adaptification of things. A daycare teacher commented on a little boy who played with things differently than they were initially intended to be played with. When he grew up, he joined the army in the tank core. During a military exercise, he saved the lives of four people because he used the equipment on his tank in a completely different way than intended. He thought outside the “box” and found a new adaptification for something existing.
Being Able to Adapt Makes You Open To New Possibilities.
Here are a few examples of people who “Adaptified” things and found new discoveries through the process of “Adaptification.” Yes, you can also use the words adapted or adaptation instead, but I think these terms lend more insight into the thought processes. It’s fascinating to see how some of the most important discoveries in history came about by chance.
Wilson Greatbatch invented the pacemaker, a device that has saved countless lives by seeming mistake in 1956. He was trying to build a device to record the heart’s rhythm when he reached into a box for a resistor to complete the circuitry in his device and pulled out the wrong size. After installing it, he realized that the circuit was emitting pulses that reminded him of the timing of a heartbeat. A bright idea came to him – that it might be possible to create a device small enough to insert into a body and stimulate the heartbeat. On May 7, 1958, a scaled-down version of his device was successfully inserted into a dog – the first pacemaker.
Sir Alexander Fleming, a Scottish bacteriologist, returned from vacation in 1928, to find a mold growing on a petri dish containing Staphylococcus bacteria. On close examination he noticed that the Staphylococcus bacteria were avoiding the area around the mold. Fleming discovered the mold produced a substance that inhibited bacterial growth. The mold was named Penicillin, and greatly improved the treatment of infectious diseases.
Charles Goodyear, an American inventor, was experimenting with rubber to make it more durable and less susceptible to heat and cold. In 1839, he accidentally dropped a mixture of rubber and sulfur on a hot stove, and the resulting material was much stronger and more flexible than anything he had produced before. His discovery of Vulcanized Rubber saved the rubber industry and led to the development of a wide variety of products, from tires to medical devices.
Wilhelm Roentgen, a German physicist, was experimenting with cathode rays in 1895 when he was surprised by a fluorescent glow emanating from a nearby screen. The rays were magically passing through objects, including his hand, and casting shadows of his bones on the screen which was coated with barium platinocyanide. Shocked at the occurance he locked himself in his laboratory for several weeks. As a result the discovery “X-rays,” led to a revolutionary new medical diagnostic tool which have helped physicians and dentists see into the human body.
We may not all become famous inventors with our happy accidents. Still, we can practice the Adaptification of our surroundings and changing times to achieve incremental happy and valuable lives and revel in our wonderful and magical world.
Develop A Strong Emotional Tolerance For Adaptability.
Change happens, so it is good to practice habits that promote calmness. Have you ever felt like a period in your life would never change? You were either glad of the routine or wishing it would end. Or have you been suddenly faced with a change that you wonder how you will survive?
Many successful people practice meditation, read inspirational works, and find calmness through their faith and spirituality. Mindfulness has helped many to accept change by reducing stressful feelings. Another thing to foster is a reciprocal support system of friends and family. Sometimes, all we need is an understanding and loving ear.
Build confidence through self-reflection. Reflecting on past changes you have successfully navigated and being grateful for whatever helped you do so can build confidence in your ability to adapt to new challenges.
Try to practice a life wherein you engage in a certain amount of routine but allow for lots of flexibility. Routine can make you feel comfortable, but flexibility will enable you to adapt to new situations and roll with whatever happens more quickly.
Make experimenting with newness part of your character. Switch up your daily schedule on a whim. Try new foods. Go to a seminar on something different. Take up a hobby—practice making new friends. Stay active.
Be Curious.
Curiosity is an attribute of youth. Stay curious! Did you know that curious people tend to have predominantly positive emotions, lower anxiety, and greater psychological well-being? Well, it does. People with a healthy dose of curiosity encourage better mental health and improved memory. Language, thinking, attention, and reasoning skills are all influenced by a curious mind.
Adapting to new and curious things can be exciting.
“Curiosity will conquer fear even more than bravery will.”
James Stephens, 1880 – 1950, was an Irish novelist, broadcaster, and poet,
now best known for his fantasy novel The Crock of Gold.
Developing a Sense of Wonder in a Changing World.
Imagine what an inner fascinating view of the world and life Louis Armstrong must have had to write this poem and song! Leonard Bernstein once said of Armstrong’s gifts, “What he does is real, and true, and honest, and simple, and even noble. Every time this man puts his trumpet to his lips, even if only to practice three notes, he does it with his whole soul.”
What A Wonderful World!
“I see trees of green, red roses, too,
I see them bloom, for me and you
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.
I see skies of blue, and clouds of white,
The bright blessed day, the dark sacred night
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world.
The colors of the rainbow, so pretty in the sky,
Are also on the faces of people going by.
I see friends shaking hands, sayin’, “How do you do?”
They’re really sayin’, “I love you.”
I hear babies cryin’. I watch them grow.
They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world.”
Far Out Stuff Is Happening, Man…
Balancing Change And Creating Wonder In Our Sci-fi Future.
- The future holds a plethora of unheard-of changes. Are you ready to roll?
- AI IS HERE. Perhaps our best assistant ever, will it lead us, take care of us, or challenge us? AI already has a starring role in our daily lives, from personalized education systems to AI-driven healthcare diagnostics. From Self-driving cars and instant libraries at our fingertips to home help, gardeners, and more. Seniors will find they can still drive anywhere in a self-driving car and stay in their own homes with a robot to take care of them and their house. Everything will be voice-activated. I like to think robots will be imprinted to care for people.
Artificial Inteligence? Someone recently said, can’t remember who, “There really is no artificial intelligence, just the Universe manifesting in new ways.“ - Quantum Computing: When quantum computers become mainstream, they’ll redefine what’s possible in computation, potentially making current encryption methods obsolete.
- Augmented Reality (AR) and Virtual Reality (VR): These will transform entertainment, education, work, and even social interactions. Imagine attending meetings in virtual spaces or learning history by stepping into a virtual hologram of sorts. Does anyone want to join me as I visit 1700s France or take a ride on a Viking ship?
- Biotechnology Advances: Gene editing, personalized medicine, and even synthetic biology could mean adapting to a world where diseases are not just treated but prevented or even eradicated at birth.
- Space Travel will become commonplace: As space tourism and possibly space colonization become realities, you might need to adapt to a world where your neighbor’s weekend getaway is to a space station, or you may be taking a spaceship around the globe at speeds before unthought of, or anticipating your next vacation on Mars.
Social and Economic Changes.
- The Gig Economy Evolution: Traditional jobs may evolve into project-based work, freelancing, or even AI-assisted careers where humans and AI collaborate.
- Digital Currencies, Transactions, and Financial Management: With cryptocurrencies becoming more mainstream, we will all have to learn more about digital finance. What will the new economy look like? New forms of investing may mean more individual choices and freedoms regarding our finances. Social security and pensions that have not been kept in pace with inflation might be turned into new secure investments that grow with you.
- Privacy and Data Management: As data becomes the new oil, adapting to new privacy laws, data ethics, and personal data sovereignty will be crucial.
- Work towards a culture of individual freedoms and sovereignty for yourself and others. The world is becoming more enlightened day by day!
Cultural and Lifestyle Adaptations
- Work-Life Integration: The line between work and personal life might blur even more. We may have to become more adamant about our free time. Unlike robots, we are not always ON. Technology enables constant connectivity, which is fantastic but will lead to new norms in work culture. We must ensure some separation, rest, and relaxation are built into every day.
- Globalization of Culture: With the internet, cultural boundaries are fading. Being culturally literate will become more critical than ever.
- Health and Wellness: With an aging population and new health tech, adapting to longevity might mean redefining retirement and health maintenance. We can look forward to living longer and enjoying more exciting lives with a new and more adaptable mindset. The secret will be staying active in mind and body. Since elders will be around longer, they will be better able to impart historical wisdom gained from their lives.
- New Medical Breakthroughs are being discovered every day. If you have any aches and pains, you might want to try Red Light Therapy, a trend that recently entered the health sphere. The Longevity Show with Dr. Hillary Lin takes complex medical research and distills it into practical, easy-to-understand advice for living a longer, healthier life. In this video, she discusses the benefits of Red Light Therapy.
- Plan to live longer because, with all of the breakthroughs in healthcare, you probably will. Previous generations gave themselves a certain life expectancy, which may not be the case now or in the future. I remember parents and grandparents giving up at a certain age. It is essential to be more optimistic about the passing years and realize we can remain active and valuable members of society much longer.
We took a trip to Chicago a few years ago, and as we were driving into the city off a freeway, we spotted a huge billboard. In large letters, it read, “Someone alive today will live to be ONE HUNDRED AND FIFTY!” The inference, to me, was something to live up to. We might live a great life and more years than anticipated, so we should prepare for it.
I remember visiting my grandmother’s first cousin, who was over 100 years old at my visit. It was such an amazing experience to measure our hands and find they were exactly the same size. I wanted to take her picture, and she hopped up and said, let’s go out on the porch. She acted like the youngest person there and had only moved into the seniors’ home a year before.
Governance and Politics.
- Decentralized Systems: Blockchain technology might lead to more decentralized governance models, where decisions could be more community-driven. You might have more say in what happens in your community.
- New Views of Citizenship and Sovereignty: Since new technologies and transparent blockchains may secure greater individuals’ rights and freedoms, individuals will have to find ways to get along in a country with as much finesse as being in a family living room.
- Kindness and consideration may be back in style—sort of a “Back to the Future” scenario. People will not feel as isolated or far away from others as in the past. With the connectivity of social media and apps, we are all here and present now and will have to find better ways to get along amicably.
New Foods – New Understanding Of What Keeps Us Healthy.
As we understand more about the microbiome of the soil, water, earth, and air and how we are all connected to this biome through our own microbiome, we will adapt and find new environmentally friendly ways to grow and prepare foods. In some ways, we may return to preserving foods more by natural fermentation rather than chemical processes as our ancestors did. Not for the preservation of foods so much as better fuel and nutrients for the biome in our bodies.
Just one of the more recent discoveries is how our bodies function. As recently as five years ago, some people like myself had been advised to take a round of antibiotics before every dental cleaning. Antibiotics were prescribed for children with sniffles more often than not. Recently, doctors don’t prescribe antibiotics so often, and I know some children who have never had them. But this does little now when it is understood that a whole group of Lactobacillus has been wiped out of our bodies.
An unusual discovery about our biome by Susan E. Erdman, Veterinarian, and William Davis, MD.
According to Dr. William Davis, Lactobacillus reuteri (L. reuteri) is a probiotic that has been wiped out of most of the human population. He says just one dose of antibiotics means you may have lost it for good. The lack of it may have been responsible for various adverse health conditions. Researchers are just beginning to learn more about microbes and the benefits of fermented foods. Find recipes.
The Benefits of L. reuteri.
- L. Reuteri is good for Gut Health. It is a friendly bacteria that is one of the most effective probiotics for promoting gut health. It can help with intestinal disorders by regulating the gut microbiota, protecting the gut barrier, and reducing inflammation.
- Infantile colic: L. reuteri is the only probiotic experts recommend for treating and preventing infantile colic. It can help by improving gut motility and directly affecting visceral pain.
- Immune system: L. reuteri can help support a normal immune system function.
- Insulin sensitivity: L. reuteri can improve insulin sensitivity and increase insulin secretion.
- Oxytocin production: L. reuteri can stimulate the production of oxytocin in the intestinal epithelium.
- Lactobacillus Reuteri is one of the most well-researched probiotics in the world, yet many of us are just hearing about it now.
- You can ferment L. Reuteri yourself. It is as smooth as Greek yogurt and has a delicate, lemony, tart taste.
I have been making it for about a month now and use an 8-quart Instapot Plus with a Sous Vide setting. I can use Instapot to prepare other meals.
Set the Sous Vide feature at 100F for 36 hours to make the yogurt. After I heat 3 quarts of half and half cream on the stove to just 90 degrees, I add 2 tbsp. L-reuteri starter from a previous batch and 6 tbsp. Inulin slurry mixture (at room temp.) is used for this amount in the cream. I then stir the mixture before filling four (4) wide-mouth mason-style glass jars and leaving some space at the top. I think you can make it with whole milk, but the half-and-half is decadent, and they say butterfat is good for manufacturing Butyrate in the Gut. Then, place the jars in the stainless-steel inner pot without the steamer rack (it takes a bit of wiggling) and add 90 F. water to the fill line. Make sure not to tighten the lids on the jars to allow any gasses to escape. The Instapot, upon starting, brings the temperature up to 100F in about 15 minutes and then times it for 36 hours.
Note: Follow the directions for the L. reuteri starter you use for the first batch.
You can start it when you like, but l get it ready in the evening after dinner, and it will be prepared in the morning 36 hours later. It avoids the middle of the night moving to the fridge. I like having it in the jars and placing it in the fridge without decanting it. I have also made repeat batches and frozen some to take on trips with success.
Adapting to changes involves education, staying informed, learning new skills, or changing one’s mindset about what’s possible.
The future promises to create a NEW AND WONDERFUL WORLD TO LIVE IN.
In the future…
“They’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know
And I think to myself
What a wonderful world
Yes, I think to myself
What a wonderful world.”
Dream Big!
Please note: The author of this post has received no financial remuneration for mentions of creative people, books, products, places, or businesses mentioned in this post.
