Adaptation or creation?

.
Not too long ago a friend argued that the best strategy for life was to adapt to whatever comes our way. He obviously has a Darwinian perspective on life. Survival of the fittest. And the fittest, the survivors, are those best at adapting to changing circumstances.

It is a mechanism we do see in nature. The species best suited for the environment will flourish. And as things change; the individuals that are quickest to adapt come out on top.

Looking at our lives this way, it assumes that we have no influence over the circumstances we live in. The things we experience are just changes within our environment and the best we can do is to adapt  to them.
In a sense it is also a fairly fatalistic perspective. If all we can do to handle what life throws at us is to adapt to whatever it is, there is not a whole lot of impetus to improve our situation or circumstances. It is like we would live our lives from a starting point of say when we were about twenty years old, on a foundation of everything we have learned from our parents and teachers. We do what they have taught us to do ~ and if it works; great! If it doesn’t work we adapt. Worst case is that we may not do anything different; we just adapt to the failing results of our actions. If money gets tight, we spend less.

After all, ‘good things come to those who wait’.

So we just keep doing what we are doing, adapting to our circumstances, while we wait for good things to come our way…

From a spiritual perspective this Darwinian viewpoint begs the question what it is we are doing that invite circumstances and situations into our lives that make our efforts unsuccessful. In other words; the spiritual perspective would be focused on a more proactive change inside of ourselves; instigating us to do things differently ~ or even start doing different things ~ in order for our efforts to be (more) successful. Or perhaps even to start manifesting the things we desire in our lives.
At a minimum, rather than adapting ourselves and our lifestyles toward the results of our efforts; adapting something within ourselves so we may be better equipped to handle changes in our lives, and changes in the world around us.

And yet, the whole philosophy behind the survival of the fittest is, well, survival…
No matter how well adapted we are; how good we are at suiting ourselves to a changing environment ~ the best we can accomplish is that we are surviving yet another day.

Is that really what life is all about?

To be continued…
.
.