Quotes About Adaptation

When anything is going to happen in this country, it happens first in Kansas

As it was, getting out of the car that night Coolidge said to Jager: "It's wonderful to ride in a horseless wagon." Then a pause: "But it won't amount to much!

If everything I perceive is based on what I already know, how will I ever perceive anything new? If I never perceive anything new, how will I change? How will I grow?

The pessimist complains about the wind; the optimist expects it to change; the realist adjusts the sails.

Change, like sunshine, can be a friend or a foe, a blessing or a curse, a dawn or a dusk.

Negative visualization, in other words, teaches us to embrace whatever life we happen to be living and to extract every bit of delight we can from it. But it simultaneously teaches us to prepare ourselves for changes that will deprive us of the things that delight us. It teaches us, in other words, to enjoy what we have without clinging to it.

On reading these and the other irritants Seneca lists, one is struck by how little human nature has changed in the past two millennia.

One key to happiness, then, is to forestall the adaptation process: We need to take steps to prevent ourselves from taking for granted, once we get them, the things we worked so hard to get.

Seneca's comment to Lucilius that "the man who adapts himself to his slender means and makes himself wealthy on a little sum, is the truly rich man.

Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.

her predicament. In his autobiography, Theodore Roosevelt offered this bit of Stoic-inspired advice: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.

Theodore Roosevelt offered this bit of Stoic-inspired advice: "Do what you can, with what you've got, where you are.

Hedonic adaptation has the power to extinguish our enjoyment of the world. Because of adaptation, we take our life and what we have for granted rather than delighting in them. Negative visualization, though, is a powerful antidote to hedonic adaptation. By consciously thinking about the loss of what we have, we can regain our appreciation of it, and with this regained appreciation we can revitalize our capacity for joy.

And when asked what he had learned from philosophy, Diogenes replied, "To be prepared for every fortune.

They say familiarity breeds contempt. This may or may not be true, but it is clear that familiarity breeds comfort: do something scary often enough, and it not only ceases to be scary, it becomes automatic.

You will realize that inasmuch as the past and present cannot be changed, it is pointless to wish they could be different. You will do your best to accept the past, whatever it might have been, and to embrace the present, whatever it might be.

N?u anh th?c s? mu?n thoát kh?i nh?ng th? làm cho anh phi?n mu?n, ?i?u anh ?ang c?n làm không ph?i là chuy?n ??n m?t n?i khác mà là tr? thành m?t con ng??i khác

Religion fails if it cannot speak to men as they are.

The man who never alters his opinion is like standing water, and breeds reptiles of the mind.

It is for these reasons that managing the neutral zone is so essential during a period of enormous change. Neutral zone management isn't just something that would be nice if you had more time. It's the only way to ensure that the organization comes through the change intact and that the necessary changes actually work the way that they are supposed to.

Establish by word and example that this is a time to step back and take stock, a time to question the "usual," and a time to come up with new and creative solutions to the organization's difficulties. Explain how business as usual chokes off creativity and explain why the present is the best possible time to generate and test new ideas. Model this new manner yourself by taking time to step back and question how your own job is done.

The task before you is therefore twofold: first, to get your people through this phase of transition in one piece; and second, to capitalize on all the confusion by encouraging them to be innovative.

Embrace losses, setbacks, or disadvantages as entry points into new solutions.

Second Law of Organizational Development: the successful outcome of any phase of organizational development triggers its demise by creating challenges that it is not equipped to handle.