From the age of 19 – 23 years old I worked part-time at my local Tesco. I learned a great deal during my time their: practically, socially, mentally and even emotionally. However I also learned something very important philosophically. For a period of a few years, I was endowed with the prestigious honour of supervising the checkouts. It was my job to stand before the checkouts and remain perspicacious to the department’s and its customers’ needs. This allowed a voluminous amount of time to people watch, as hundreds of customers a day would line up and wait to be charged for their pesticide-filled, seed oil-dowsed groceries. Over time I noticed there are 3 different kinds of people in this world (or in Tesco at least).
1. The customer that switches queues like a Sultan switches wives.
2. The customer that remains bound to one queue as though it is their political party, no matter how slow it may be moving or what other checkouts become available.
3. The customer that bears the burden of common sense, and does not abandon a queue hastily, but will invoke the sagacity to move to another one if the circumstances prove it efficient to do so.
Naturally customer no. 3 was the rarest. This insight into human psychology and social conventions, provides us with the perfect metaphor for the imperative balance of adaptation and resilience that we must strike throughout life. To be resilient is to not allow yourself to be adaptive. To be adaptive is to dilute your ability to resist. The more resilient, the less adaptive. The more adaptive, the less resilient.
Because we are human, and therefore have a tendency to think and live in polarities and extremes, we tend to focus on either being aqueously adaptive or rigidly resilient. Unfortunately we must be both, or rather one or the other dependent on the circumstances in front of us. Some situations demand greater resolve of us: to not abandon our current path or station just because it is slow-moving and wearing. They require us to remain on track, remain on message – indefatigably and unperturbed. Other situations demand greater reactivity, to be able to move in accordance with the environment around us – liquideously and percipiently. We cannot develop one attribute, and try and use it as a universal key to every door before us.
Striking a balance, being one type of person in one moment and another in the next, is a fiendish task, but necessary if you want to be successful and make the best out of every opportunity life gives you. So next time you take a trip to the local Tesco, practice this philosophy and provide a good example for the young, Socratic supervisor watching. And do your best to keep this mindset on hand day-to-day, so that one day you may be able to flow like water in one moment, and sink like a rock in the next.
Be adaptive, remain resilient, and have a blessed day.