"It is not the strongest of the species that survives, nor the most intelligent that survives. It is the one that is most adaptable to change." — Charles Darwin
I remember some years ago reading books by Gail Sheehy, an American author, journalist and lecturer. She played a part in New Journalism, founded by Tom Wolfe, also known as creative non-fiction, where writers experimented with adopting a variety of literary techniques like scene setting, dialogue and status details to denote social class and getting inside the story. When I first read her book Passages, a book focused on cultural shifts, I remembered the story of the crayfish shedding its skin and being in that most vulnerable time of its life until the new skin hardened. It has always reminded me that change can be a most vulnerable time for all creatures. As Charles Darwin says — the species that survives is the one that is most adaptable.
Not changing can mean not growing and not growing means we really are not living. It often takes the "crazy ones", the misfits, the rebels and those often called troublemakers to show us that we can change. As I look around I notice it is often the people crazy enough to think they can change the world that do change the world.
My Angels suggest that you and I each have the power to change others. We are born with that power. We need to realise that we change people by how we treat them. How we treat each other changes the human heart. So, as this new month begins, let us be one of the species that survives by being adaptable. Arohanui.
Shirley-Joy.
