53. ADAPT OR DIE

The measure of intelligence is the ability to change.

- Albert Einstein

Over time, deployments to Afghanistan took on a predictable routine. As we prepared to go overseas, we’d talk to the Task Force currently deployed about what was working for them and what wasn’t. Then, we’d use those lessons to prepare. Except, when we finally got to Afghanistan ourselves, half the things we’d practiced weren’t relevant anymore because the situation had changed.

Some Task Forces fought this reality and tried to conduct operations exactly how they’d trained. Almost without exception, these Task Forces were not effective. They worked hard and then sat around and waited for the perfect mission which never came. Then there were the Task Forces who realized things had changed and adapted, and the ones that adapted quickest were usually the most successful.

In life as well, the best laid plans often don’t go as intended. My goal when I started writing was to complete a book a year. I was a planner, and I’d fall back on my military training and come up with detailed timelines and then get stressed when the creative process turned my plans on themselves. I’d want to throw up my hands and walk away, forgetting all the while that my stress was the result of trying to control things in my little world that were inherently uncontrollable. It was only when I adapted, focusing on the conditions I needed to set as opposed to meeting precise dates that I was able to resume progress toward my goal. Bottom line, I changed. 

The tough thing about change is that not everyone can do it. Some people can’t even recognize change is happening, they’re like the frog boiled alive in a pot of slowly heated water, unable to identify change until it’s too late. This is the problem facing many people these days, they can’t recognize that some of what has worked the past fifty years and more is no longer sustainable.

It’s not that simple, of course. After all, it’s not like everything’s broken. As we’ve covered before, there are lots of things about our society that are better now than they’ve ever been. There’s a real risk in causing unintended harm by taking drastic action, which needless to say makes it super challenging to know where to start.

Alternatively, maybe some people do understand change is happening, but can’t bring themselves to do anything about it. They don’t want to forego their annual holiday in the Dominican Republic because that’s what they’ve always done and change is inconvenient. And then there are those who will adopt a strategy which they’ll then fail to adjust, a slightly better approach than no strategy at all but doomed all the same. Like those Afghanistan Task Forces who couldn’t read the writing on the wall, what worked last week or last month or last year might not work today and might never work again. Every strategy is temporary because the world and everything in it is always changing.

The lesson, here, is Darwinian.

Those who can’t adapt, get left behind and die.