{"id":10305,"date":"2015-09-02T10:30:00","date_gmt":"2015-09-02T05:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/?p=10305"},"modified":"2021-01-30T12:29:30","modified_gmt":"2021-01-30T06:59:30","slug":"adaptability-actualisation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/2015\/09\/02\/adaptability-actualisation\/","title":{"rendered":"Adaptability & Actualisation"},"content":{"rendered":"

“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change<\/em>“, Darwin had said, in a more long-winded form. I have been in awe of evolution as a concept for a while now, and have rather prided myself on being adaptive, specially in my work\u00a0context. In terms of hard skills, I still believe that’s the way to go. However, when dealing with people, both in personal and professional settings, I have realised that it is possible to go overboard on being adaptive.<\/p>\n

A meta prequel before I get to that. On hindsight, I am seeing\u00a0an evolution in my thinking on this subject. Back in April of last year, I figured out<\/a> that I am happier when I don’t judge myself. \u00a0Later, in October<\/a>, I realised that\u00a0there is a correlation, and probably even a causation, between my happiness and the way I treat others. I decided to fix my happiness as my compass. But when I read this post<\/a> from a couple of months ago, it seems as though I had wandered off the track I had decided on.\u00a0<\/p>\n

In that last post, I had described my humour as a defense mechanism, and something my ego had picked up for defending its self perception. But I realise that humour in this context is only a means. The end (protecting a self image) was actually the issue. In fact, in a larger context, humour plays a much bigger role in my life. It’s a part of me that I like, and one that makes me happy. Writing, tees, humour in a conversation, wordplay, PJs, anything.<\/p>\n

And that’s where it connects back to adaptability. The lessons – how much I adapt and for whom\/what. I have to be more careful about the cost-benefit and not just blindly adapt just because I can. The tension between prakriti<\/em> (nature, mine here) and sanskriti<\/em> (culture, accepted behaviour\/ expectations from those around me) can only be so much. In the above context, I only have a binary control of my humour –\u00a0I cannot control the timing or the audience. So either it is switched on or it’s turned off. And when I turn it off,\u00a0it takes a toll on me! I am just unhappy, and it shows!\u00a0If I have to play it down and change myself, the intent better be worth it.<\/p>\n

As for whom,\u00a0I realised that I automatically expect reciprocation when I adapt. That, on hindsight, is dumb. The people I deal with will have their own frameworks, and will react according to those, not mine. If I try to\u00a0second guess those, it is just going to land me in a mess. Situations (the ‘what’) might have many variables beyond mine or even others’ control. Expecting something to happen or someone to change just because I adapted just leads to angst, which in turn makes it all counterproductive. All of this reminded me of a superb post by Mark Manson titled “The Subtle Art of Not Giving A F***<\/a>“.\u00a0I adapt because I give a f***. My filter therefore needs to be what I give a f*** about. And that needs to be a very small set of people and things. I think I might have a handy framework I’d like to try \u00a0for deciding what goes into that set – Taleb’s Fragile\/ Robust \/Antifragile triad<\/a>.\u00a0Let’s see how that plays out!<\/p>\n

But for now, to quote the master, \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

\"Yoda\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

“It is not the strongest species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the ones most responsive to change“, Darwin had said, in a more long-winded form. I have been in awe of evolution as a concept for a while now, and have rather prided myself on being adaptive, specially in my work\u00a0context. In terms […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[6052,1479,412,6268,6056],"tags":[4568,4904,687,4564,1236,3465],"class_list":["post-10305","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-choices","category-thoughtstream","category-life","category-self","category-society-culture","tag-adaptability","tag-giving-a-f","tag-happiness","tag-humour","tag-judgment","tag-nassim-nicholas-taleb"],"aioseo_notices":[],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10305","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10305"}],"version-history":[{"count":9,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10305\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15531,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10305\/revisions\/15531"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10305"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10305"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/manuscrypts.com\/test\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10305"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}