On The Necessity of Adaptation

Everywhere we look, everything is changing.

When change occurs, things that worked before may no longer function. That leaves us with two options: adapt and grow, or remain stagnant and die a slow death.

Nature provides us with a brilliant model of this. As changes occur in an environment, the inhabitants have to adapt to those new changes in order to survive. Take giraffes for example. They didn’t always have the long goofy necks we’re familiar with. They’ve become longer over time as a result of evolutionary adaptation.

Longer necks allowed giraffes to reach more leaves on acacia trees that giraffes with shorter necks couldn’t get to. Male giraffes also use their necks to whip each other in a fight for females (search “giraffe fight” on YouTube. It’s wild, literally). Thus, giraffes with long necks have greater access to food and a higher likelihood of winning fights, getting the girl, and reproducing.

So over time, giraffes with shorter necks were inevitably weeded out and giraffes with superior long necks prevailed.

The evolutionary biology model of adaptation isn’t perfect since the adaptation occurs over long periods of time (via iteration, genetic mutation, and natural selection). However, it clearly shows the necessity of adaptation at the risk of becoming obsolete.

Just like our long-necked friends, our environment is also constantly changing. It changes on a macro level with new technology (i.e. automobiles, internet, electricity), new social norms replacing old traditions, and shifts in political policy. These big changes are typically more obvious, but our environment is subtly changing on a micro level as well. Think about simple things like a road being closed on our way to work, the grocery store rearranging its shelves, or replacing a drip coffee maker with a percolator.

Regardless of the size of the environmental change, we still need to adapt.

Using a percolator instead of a drip machine completely disrupts the way we brew our morning cup of joe, but if we don’t adapt our coffee routine, we risk our morning productivity plummeting.

Perhaps a more serious example is our company implementing new software. If the new software is imperative to our work, then we better learn how to use it, else, we won’t have a job for much longer. Someone who can better adapt will inevitably take our place.

If we don’t step into change it will step on us.