Adapt or Change?

A reader posted a comment a couple of days ago on a post I’d written back in March, titled “Puzzles, Adventure, and Longevity.” In the post, I talked about how puzzle solving, either on paper on in navigating an uncharted landscape in life, has been shown to make us happy, and that optimistic people tend to do better at puzzle solving. They also tend to live longer.

A question I posed in that post was whether the optimism that made people take on and do better at adventure and puzzles was inherent in their personalities, or conversely, was acquired by successfully struggling through puzzles and adventures, and learning that they could, in fact, prevail in making order out of chaos.

“I’m not sure whether optimism makes a person take on adventure, or whether adventure, successfully undertaken, makes a person more optimistic. If pressed, I’d answer yes to both,” I concluded.

A reader named “Mr. Z,” however, pointed out that puzzle solving was about changing a situation, such as making order out of chaos. More important to happiness and longevity, he said, was “adaptive” intelligence—or the ability to simply adapt to what was.

I had to ponder that one for a while. Even Darwin argued that adapting to change is essential for survival (e.g. adapt or die). But does that mean we should never attempt to take the reins into our own hands to change our circumstances or find a new path out of a place other people accept?

Certainly, my own grandmother, who lived to the ripe old age of 93, said her key to longevity was that she “never worried about a thing.” She was a seemingly happy person, but she was also very passive. Happy to accept whatever came her way. So is that the model we all should follow, instead of trying to change the world?

I’m not sure. It may have worked for my grandmother, but simply accepting one’s fate isn’t always a healthy thing. Victor Frankl, an Austrian psychiatrist who survived four concentration camps in World War II, wrote in his classic book Man’s Search for Meaning that it was those who felt they had a reason they needed to survive, some unfinished work to do or important purpose to their continued existence, who endured and survived those extreme circumstances the best. And meaning and purpose tend to stem from actively engaging in the world in a way that effects change or has impact.

What’s more, the longitudinal Terman study chronicled in a recent book The Longevity Project noted that while a person’s unhappiness didn’t make them die sooner, it did tend to negatively impact the lifespan and health of their spouse. So adapting to a bad situation isn’t always good for one’s health or longevity.

On the other hand, there is a point at which acceptance becomes, at least on some level, the healthy option. Beating one’s head against a wall far beyond the point of any potential change is undoubtedly hard on one’s health and optimistic view of life. And people who are always peripatetically seeking some new, magical change that will make them happy rarely find that happiness.

There is, as Mr. Z said, a lot to be said for looking for happiness where you are, instead of always imagining it lies elsewhere. Except, of course, if you’re in a situation that is truly unhealthy.

In the end, as with many things, it’s probably a matter of finding a balance between the two: of, as Reinhold Neibuhr’s Serenity prayer (adopted by Alcoholics Anonymous) puts it, finding the courage to change the things that can (or should) be changed, the serenity to accept those things that can’t be changed … and the wisdom to know the difference.

And exactly where that balance lies, I think everyone has to discover or figure out for themselves.

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