Adapt

I don’t know why, but as I was getting ready for work today, my boarding school days came flooding back. I’m not even sure how much of this memory is real, since the mind loves to reframe the visual scenery of certain moments, but one day sticks with me: standing in front of the security check post that doubled as the telephone point, right at the edge where the sports grounds met the residential dormitories. Standing right there, I remember landing on the idea that being adaptable through any kind of circumstance was the most important thing a person could be. I told myself that if I was going to be one thing, it would be adaptable. I’d survive almost anything. I took real pride in it, in being able to bend to whatever the situation demanded.

I was new to the boarding school back then, and my early read on it was that things were going to be tough. Those were also the years I was slowly shaping my personality and value system. With no father figure around to guide me or tell me what to think, I was just gravitating toward whatever felt meaningful on its own.

In some ways, I already had the trait. That moment was just me saying it out loud to myself for the first time. Looking back now, I realize that for a huge part of my life, away from my sister and parents, I was really just wandering the hallways of my own mind, shaping myself organically, one decision at a time.

I don’t know if adaptability was ever really something worth chasing. I’m sitting here now wondering what I’d even reach for instead, if not the ability to adapt myself to a situation. If I were guiding my own kids, what should I actually tell them to anchor themselves around? Can I even influence that at all?