Storms of change

Are you a roll with the punches kind of person? Do you take challenges in stride and move along down the road?

Or are you someone who is easily stressed over life changes? Do extreme life shifts throw you off kilter and challenge your ability to stay upright and functional?

I’m guessing, if you’re like me, you’ve got a little bit of both of these types of responses. In fact, most people typically have a variety of responses to the changes in their lives based on the type, severity, and scope of change they are enduring.

I mean, it’s one thing if Starbucks is out of your favorite flavor syrup (oh noes!).

It quite another thing when a loved one dies unexpectedly.

The fact of the matter is, that change is one of the few guaranteed constants in our lives. It’s right up there with death and taxes. Even the recluse who’s holed up in his house, refusing to encounter the outside world for fear of it hurting him, will experience the plodding of time taking it’s toll on body and mind.

Face it. Change is here to stay. You can’t avoid it. So stop trying.

However, you can set yourself up well to encounter change, endure it, and bounce back. There are things that I can do to protect myself when I know change is coming. There are healthy behaviors that I can engage in to process the effects of change. I have coping mechanisms that I can rely on to weather the turbulent storm approaching.

And it strikes me that I’m certainly blessed to have the ability (financially, intellectually, emotionally) to even have the option to foster those healthy behaviors and to prepare for change as much as possible, because for some people, that preparation is simply not at option.

In thinking about what we know about human development, it strikes me that all of our problems come back to the degree to which we as biological organisms are capable of successfully and positively adapting to the changes constantly being pelted at us. The complicated part of all of this of course is that change can come from many sources. It can compound on top of existing change. It can stem from things completely out of your control. And it can feed on itself.  

 

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For example, say you’ve come down with the stomach bug. Now, that stomach bug could be brought on by a number of factors. The microbiologists among us might say that it was brought on due to exposure to a bacteria or virus that the immune system could not fight off effectively. The gastroenterologist might say that it’s due to a bout of food poisoning. But the epidemiologist might say that your race, social status, level of affluence, and access to healthcare might have influenced the onset and longevity of this stomach bug. The historian might look at the situation and say that the neighborhood you reside in has been linked to higher levels of illness due to the presence of a chemical factory in the 1920s. And the dietician says that your propensity to eat copious amounts of unhealthy types of foods means that you’re likely to cause a disruption in your system to warrant a stomach bug.

These are all valid explanations for what might be going on.

And the thing is, all of these explanations might be, at least in part, true.

Because life really IS that complex. Change is constant and it feeds on the instability of influential life factors in a way that is often baffling to comprehend.

Coming back to the stomach bug. Let’s play out two scenarios:

1) You come from an affluent, clean and safe neighborhood. You haven’t been sleeping much lately due to some work stress, but you’ve got a vacation coming up that you’re looking forward to enjoying. You try to exercise at least three times a week, and though you enjoy the occasional cheeseburger, you tend to have a fairly balanced diet. Somehow, you contract a stomach bug, and though it makes you miserable for a few days, and you get behind on some work, you manage to make it through relatively unscathed in time for your vacation.

2) You’re a single mom with 3 kids working 2 jobs to make ends meet. You often eat at fast food restaurants because that’s the easiest and cheapest option. You try to take your kids to the playground, or go for a walk around the block with them, but only before dark as your neighborhood is not especially safe at night. You haven’t slept for 8 hours straight in longer than you can remember, and your youngest child has an ear infection, but you can’t afford to go to the doctor, so you’ve been doing home remedies. You get the stomach bug. You fight through it because you have to, but you notice that even 2 months later, you’re still not feeling 100%. You worry that something might be seriously wrong, but you know you can’t afford the necessary doctor’s bills to figure out what’s really going on.

Think about it. When you have the means, access to some of the best healthcare in the world (despite it’s many limitations), and minimal chance of dying during a normal day, you have security and position of adaptability that enhances the chances of weathering disruptive change relatively well.

 

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But when you don’t have the financial means, have limited access to healthcare, and are at increased risk of daily bodily harm, chances are that your capability to weather change effectively and efficiently is hindered.

Scenario 2 is that case.

The challenges of position, class, status, financial stability, physical and mental health, stress -  we all face them to a certain degree. But some of us are faced with more of those challenges, and more often, than others.

And the ability to adapt to those changes and challenges and move forward from them is what’s key to survival.

It always has been. Since the days people were living in caves.

But here’s a cool prospect about this “adaptability” thing. It’s not entirely predictable.

We hear cases every day of children and youth facing horribly traumatic and challenging struggles in life, only to find that they come out the other side of those changes stronger and wiser. Think about the kids I wrote about last week living in some of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods of our country who are just trying to get out to a better life. In those situations of deep struggle, some people express resilience, a scientific term which refers to the process of flexibly “bouncing back” or recovering from difficulties quickly. Some people are adaptable to change, despite almost everything surrounding them stacking the odds against them. Somehow, some people can make it through, even when it’s least expected.

But there are those who don’t make it through.

And sometimes those who don’t make it through had so many things going right for them, that it’s baffling to see them fail in the face of seemingly minimal change.

But it happens every day.

This inability to exactly predict an individual’s adaptability to change is both the puzzling, head-scratching part of human existence, and one of the most beautiful parts of the human condition.

It means we’re not living in the Minority Report. Despite scientific advancements and technological leaps forward, we haven’t cracked the human code. We can’t predict it all.

And that’s a good thing. Because like any avid movie-goer will tell you, the meat of the story – what happens to, and through, the characters – and the telling of it, is what can make or break a movie. Those challenges, predictable and unpredictable, that characters face that force them to re-evaluate who they are and adapt accordingly – those are the most moving, thrilling, unflinchingly human stories there are.

I’m not saying that we shouldn’t try to improve the lives of people facing adversity – quite the opposite. Removing barriers is one part of that. Providing opportunities another.

 

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But the core of what we as humankind can do to benefit one another, is build and strengthen one another’s capacity to adapt to the never-ending changes in life. To better weather the damage of the hurricanes of change in our lives successfully, and well. Increasing the odds that people will adapt flexibly and positively to change is perhaps one of the most important things we can do for each other.

Building people’s capacity to succeed in the face of change and adversity doesn’t rely wholly on the functionality of bloated systems of government to come through and save the day, but rather builds on what exists in each person, and changes the whole from within. It plays to the strengths of human goodness and hope.

Is this idea of building individual adaptability perfect? No. Does it fix everything? Not likely. Is it the one and only answer? Definitely not.

But it means that even in the face of turbulent destruction and horrendous trauma, there is hope, however small, that perseverance will prevail. Goodness will win out. Humanity will survive, adapt, and thrive.

That hope is integral to the plot of every good human survival movie for a reason. 

Because we need that hope to be real to know that we can survive in the face of the ceaseless change staring us down every single day.