What Do You Need to Change?

It is week ten in our fifty week calligraphic challenge and we were given the words of Charles Darwin:

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor is it the most intelligent; it is the one most adaptable to change.

-Charles Darwin

I thought about this quote all day. I worked, ran errands, thought some more, exercised and then landed on an idea. What you see here is not the idea I had in my head; it morphed and changed over the course of creating it. Maybe that would be considered a poetic tribute to Darwin’s words. The work that survived was the work that changed.

It can be easy to assume that the strongest or smartest will lead, survive, keep things moving forward. If these past two years in a global pandemic have taught us anything, it is that those who change are the ones who come out on the other side better, stronger, faster, and more prepared for whatever comes next. We all had to be willing to change in order to face an unforeseeable foe. We had to change the way we thought, lived, worked and related to others. We were also given the time to think long and hard about what is truly important to us, once the fluff and drama that surrounds our everyday world floats away. It is easy to get distracted by the ‘things’ of life, or the things that people, media and outsiders are trying to convince us are important. When our thinking is processed, we have to adapt and change the way we thought it should be and face what it really is now that a pandemic has covered our lives in uncertainty.

There are indeed certainties in life – death, taxes, and change. Everything else is pliable and probably will be different this year from next. When we think about it, that’s a good thing. Being able to change and grow means we have a better life, more options, and opportunities for things to get better. And yes things can get worse. Either way, things will change.

I am not sure I agree with all of Darwin’s ideas; however I do agree that those who survive are the ones most adaptable to change. What do you need to change in order to adapt in your own world?