Adaptability to Survive and Thrive
If you are into true, inspirational stories where resilience is a must in able to reach what your mind truly believes can happen even if the rest of the world could be standing against you, We Do Things Differently, is that book.
There are significantly a vast array of testimonials in this book, from medical breakthroughs out of the love for a family member to educational successes to prove that no excuses can and will lead to success, no matter how low you line up with the rest. When all have left, leaving you to make a change for your community, you find means to efficiently produce vegetation or yet, in another part of the world, defying the traditional way of growing rice in an area not believed possible to cultivate such production- you do just that.
If I should forget any other message in this book, the one that has stuck with me to this day is this: To find out how one succeeds, ask one that has no other choice. This, this alone, is that mental stronghold that I believe I not only relate to, but clutch onto because I have faced such decision several times in my life not just to thrive, but at times, most urgently, to survive. Adaptability is a must for survival if one should even think to arrive at eventually thriving.
I gave everything I had the means to give to my oldest three what I didn’t ever have not because I didn’t believe I, alone, was good enough to emulate (secretly, quite the contrary, really). I understood pain from a perspective of not even having the time to reflectively accept it. Resilience drives you forth, not to dwell in the unwanted circumstances. I believe now that I subconsciously couldn’t wait to start giving what had been too painful to admit I had been deprived of- understanding empty leads to the desire of being full.
I have told my children to save their tears for when it really hurts. I explained real pain doesn’t allow you to prepare for tears- the tears just come out rolling. As for drama. I tell my students from time to time, year to year, that real drama is not spoken of because those in real drama have no time to stop and talk about their life-they are too busy hoping and praying while trying to get out of it.
I didn’t learn to swim the typical way of someone teaching you or that privileged life my children received, taking lessons. In a pool of an apartment complex we had shortly resided in, one of my brothers threw me in a pool. I cannot recall how deep it was, but all I can remember is that it was quite deep blue looking up and the surface of the water seemed so far from reach. My natural instincts told me to climb up. I say “climb” because I can only recall thinking I did not know how to swim and I only knew how to climb up at that time. I was 8 years-old. I recall making it to the surface, embracing air I had momentarily been deprived of, anticipating the sight of my Papa. There he was, trying to hold back both outrage and panic as I saw him rushing toward me, frantically ready to jump in.
I just remember telling myself to float back with my ears as I paddled to the side, ignoring the water I had and was still swallowing so I could look fine in the eyes of my Papa. I did not want him to jump in because he was fully clothed. I made it to the side where I was able to find hold. My memory of a swimming lesson. Like a dog thrown into the water (my brother’s justification), I learned. Adaptability.
I had a used bike passed down to me by one of my relatives. I did not know how to ride a bike nor was I going to expect any of my siblings or parents to have time to show me how. The bike had no brakes. However, I had two benefits to my determination to learn: 1) the apartment we were residing in had a slope that turned at a corner 2) and before the turn, there was a tree I could use as my “brakes” each time I ran into it. I didn’t want to ruin the only shoes I had by putting down my feet to the ground to stop the bike at great speed going down each time on that slope.
I must have hit that tree so many times before I finally found the courage to the next step I had already envisioned I eventually would have to gather the nerve to do- ignore the tree and keep going around the corner.
I recall my belated brother walking out of the apartment just in time to see me turn the corner. I could see from the corner of my eyes that he was calling for my Papa to come and see me. As I felt their presence rush behind me, it quickly came to my realization that I would have to stop, no trees to stop me. I did the only thing I heard my mind to do- I leaned my bike to the side and purposely crashed myself to the ground. Knowing I had been watched, I quickly turned around to gesture I was fine. If helmets existed back then, I must laugh to think I surely did not have one. I was bruised, perhaps, but my family members witnessed yet another mark in my life. My memory of my first bike ride around the corner by myself. Adaptability.
Thriving is an arrival that, if you are lucky, has been generationally passed down to you. After all, as I have told my students time to time, you don’t want to be that generation in your family line that messes up all that hard work of your ancestors in the past, being the one contributing to where the next generation must start again at level zero. Retrospectively, if the previous generation(s) have yet to arrive at the destination you know you are made to arrive to, it’s up to you to make sure you get there or at least set it up for the generations in your family to follow.
What I found absolutely fascinating in this book, We Do Things Differently, by Mark Stevenson, is the stories did just that. There was no one handing them the baton to say you can take over from here. Matter of fact, the stories could have easily been about hopelessness, defeat, and pure surrender to devastation and pure utter misfortune. But just like something clicked in me to climb up to the surface of the water or to eventually turn that corner to keep going, teaching myself how to ride a bike, the people in these incredibly uplifting stories is that they dared to do the impossible.
To thrive when the path has been set before you to just put in work and you shall succeed mindset is undoubtedly second to the ones who thrive from the first need to survive. I understand the thriving state as an arrival of gained confidence, a push to continuity of what ultimately feels good.
To survive is facing that moment in life where one must push beyond our human instincts. Rather, it is a mechanical instinct- that fight, flight, or freeze weight upon us at sometimes a nanosecond of decision-making. The state of what I suggest as one panic stricken, ultimately facing death, defeat, or greater danger if one were to surrender.
Sometimes, it is within seeing ourself succeed that takes our breath away. Within a nanosecond, both when coming up for air when I found myself at the bottom of a pool or finding a way to stop myself on that bike required me to mechanically think to survive.
In teaching myself how to ride a bike, it was not during those many times I ran into that tree to stop myself where I felt panic-stricken. That step was rather rudimentary. It was the very moment where I decided to actually keep going around that corner. Just as soon as I felt, saw, and heard voices behind me that I was indeed riding the bike continually by myself is where I suddenly felt scared. I arrived, but didn’t have a follow-up plan and I had to think quick.
My husband and I recently listened to a comment multi-champion in boxing, Floyd Mayweather, had stated. He said something of the matter, “Always have someone around you who will make you want to do better.” Reading this book makes me think that very same message. Even though I never met any of these path-runners, they were each testimonials that there can be the impossible to be done. When you read about those who did not give themselves any other reason, but to succeed, I feel compelled to keep doing the same. No excuses. Succeed already. To thrive will follow.
