“It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives.  It is the one that is the most adaptable to change.”

— Charles Dickens

We spend a lifetime working at becoming the brightest, the fittest, the most adept at performing our work, the best athletes.  We pay a great deal of attention to ourselves, growing the Ego part of us — the sense of self that defines and separates us from others — so that we fine-tune our definition of the uniqueness we bring to our world.

How much time do we devote to looking at the bigger picture?  How much time do we spend observing the world where we live and breathe and interact so that we can see ourselves as part of something where our role is only a small piece?  The world is always changing; and it seems as though that is an understatement in our times.  Economic change, harsh weather patterns, wars, and even natural disasters are a part of the daily news report.  As a society, we struggle to see that all are fed, sheltered, clothed, and protected.  What worked 100 years ago no longer seems to fill the bill; and we find that we are part of a sort of turmoil as groups with different ideas for change struggle against one another.  As we strive to find solutions to the problems we face, it seems that we create more problems that also need to be solved.

In the end, as Darwin says, it will not be the strongest or the most intelligent who survive and break through to the next era.  It will be the most adaptable.  In order to adapt, we first must see the world clearly enough to understand the challenge we face.  Now is a good time to observe all that is happening around us and, more than ever before, to see that fighting the changes or trying to outwit them will not see us through the challenges we face.  Now is a good time to develop the resourcefulness that allows us to live in tune with the changing universe and find the place where we best can become a part of something beyond our power to change.  Now is the time to accept and embrace that it is we who need to adapt and change, not the world we live in.

More than anything else, it is the time to trust that there is Intelligence in the universe that far outstrips our own.  We must use our strength, our intelligence, and our ability to observe with the goal of becoming aligned with that greater intelligence.  Only by adapting and becoming what we are created to be can we hope to survive.  Only by becoming who each of us is created to be can humankind hope to survive the change that lies ahead.