A D A P T I B I L I T Y !

Well low and below I was having some tea this morning and going through my thousands of RSS feeds and one of the survival method blogs wrote about the following subject matter:

Why Do People Fail To Adapt?

1. Not seeing what is happening. Sometimes folks just aren’t informed on what is going on. Hard to make logical conclusions and adapt to them if you don’t have the information.

2. Refusal to accept the new reality. Folks will just stick their heads in the sand and hope the problem goes away. Often this happens with a family who can’t afford to maintain their current lifestyle. They will try to borrow and juggle bills and try to hold onto the greased string as long as they possibly can. Like tearing off a band aid going slower makes it worse. Better to have a couple really rough months than a couple pretty rough years.  Also there are those starving farmers in Africa. Ya know the ones you always see on the aids commercials? The ones who keep planting pathetic little gardens on their 1/2 of an acre farm in the Sudan where 9/10 years there is a drought that kills all the crops.

3. They limit their options. They refuse to try the kind of food that is available and starve instead. They refuse to move to find work. They hope old jobs will come back instead of focusing on retraining and finding new employment.

4. They give up – Adapting, at least in the context we are talking about, is usually unpleasant. Like any other human situation, there is a huge psychological factor. When something bad happens, I am not saying you shouldn’t be sad. Eat a carton of ice cream, or drink a half bottle of booze or whatever it is you do. Go to sleep, wake up and get the heck on with your life. It will eventually get better.

Wow.  Say it aint so?!   Lets do an item-by-item analysis here.

Item #1 Not Seeing what is happening.

Being aware and not being stupid.  Ok this is almost a circular argument as solipsism is seeping in here.  Really?  Please make logical and rational decisions. Pretty obvious and appears to be a given if your building software.  In many cases not being informed is another way of saying you do not have the background to process the information.

Item #2 Refusal to accept the new reality.

This is a big one.  In many cases people cannot cope with vast changes in technology or any type of culture.  I mentioned homeostasis in my last blog.  Resistant to change.    It is a conundrum of sorts.  They want better yet they do not want to deal with a new reality or they have the inability to understand a new reality.  This is occurring in the world of database technology.  (thought I would throw in some software terms to make it tech based).  It is hard when someone busts your whole reality of what you thought was possible.  We no longer need huge co-locations to run companies.  EC2 changed what is possible.  People are still fighting it.  Machines that learn?  OMG they will take jobs away!  It reminds me of the 1950s robot scare (not that I was around then I just read about it…)

Item #3 They Limit their options

Doesn’t this appear counterintuitive when you take it out of the context of life and death or not creating competitive software?  Options! Choices! Menus! Features!  Heck Sonic Burger makes a killing on menu features and options.  So does Microsoft Office – something like 1739 features?

Item #4 They give up adapting.

If you just quit, you get what you deserve. This doesn’t mean keep doing the same thing over and over and over and over and expecting a different result – that is crazy.  If you just quit and literally give up you deserve what you get.  Go Home.  Walk on home boy.

There is also a flip side to adaptation and that is knowing when to hold the line and not change to the latest bright shiny object or algorithm.  This is also adaptation albeit using experience.  Being Patient is an adaptive.  Mr Alligatorinae pictured above is a great animal at being patient.  Be Patient – Adapt – Emerge.

Until Then

Go Big Or Go Home.

Original site can be accessed here:

WHY DO PEOPLE FAIL TO ADAPT?