Adeptness to Adaptability

This morning, the children were having a laughing riot, so I just came out of the kitchen to find out what it was all about because there was nothing heard. They were watching Amazing baby videos on Discovery channel. Oh! Boy a real stress buster and that too in the morning. The children went to school buoyant.

Now started the thought process with my cuppa. There was these few scenes from this video that replayed a few times in my mind. The children (all in the age group of 3-6) in a playschool are given a plate of spaghetti and chopsticks to eat it with. Each of them tries to pick up the spaghetti’s in a lot of permutation and combination and fails. so this is what one child tries, starts lapping the S from the plate (aka doggie style), then there is smart girl who just holds the sticks in the right hand and starts eating with the left hand. technically she is still holding her sticks. Only two of the lot go into weepy mode but still keep trying.

Ok, I can hear my friend’s thinking this is very common and what is there to think about this. Well for me it showed that children are adaptable to any situation given a little encouragement and time.

why has adapting caught my attention so much today, well with the economic downturn, many families are struggling to keep up to the standard of living they are used to. members in the family are in a querulous nagging mode about any changes to the standard. I know a family where the father slogs abroad to keep the expenses of the family that is staying in India, right now he has been given a notice and is very scared of how is family is going to adjust and accommodate to his not sending money for the expenses.

At the same time, I had the opportunity to talk to a Ilite, whose husband’s job was at threat. She just told me “Shanthi, I have asked the maids to go, have started thinking about where I can cut the expenses and analyse and we can run the show till something concrete comes” I was really happy at the positive way she had started to look at adapting to change.

This made me think, most of us have been in the cushion of a good living and good jobs, that the fear of losing the job never was a reality until today. Which reminds me of joke that used to do the rounds, when we thought Indian economy was stable, Its recession when your neighbor loses their job. It is a depression when you lose your job.

How many of us have taken up to thinking of a strategy for what if?? We actually need to think of the what if, to be in the cushion of having planned for such contingencies instead of being awakened to face them rudely. Planning a strategy for what if does not mean that it is going to happen, but it is just a keeping you prepared for the worst situations.

Many times, I have been called names for thinking of the negatives or the consequences before thinking of the positive or the Pros of a problem or a situation. I have just smiled and kept mum, as I have become conditioned that way and is part of my nature.

Adaptability plays a key role when you move into any relationship. Just let us take marriage, you not only get a spouse, but you get a readymade in house package of inlaws, their habits, their customs and the works, which may not be user-friendly until your mind wants to accept the change of the platform which is not the same as your parents. (Haven’t we moved from windows to XP, and now Vista and are happy…)
The best adaptation that comes across when I think of us people is when a woman is carrying a baby. The body tries to acclimatizes to all the changes of the extra life and the whole environment around also adopts to these changes be it the family or self.
Though we have not been given the physical qualities of adapting as a chameleon or some of the species, we still have a mind that could work out the ways to be adapting to situation and still be happy..
Let us be adventurous and adapt. The Chinese say, let us be wise and be able to adapt as the water moulds into the shape of the pitcher, but I would go one step ahead and say let us adapt but never lose the individuality like the water that does not lose its properties or takes the characteristics of the pitcher.