This time of year in the northern United States, summer activities are winding down, as the change of seasons doesn’t permit warm weather hobbies to continue. My family has a pool for enjoyment and exercise, and being unheated, it’s now on borrowed time. My mom and I grab any opportunity we have to take a dip while we still can, since we know the weeks are going to pass all too soon.
My adventurous mother is way more tolerant than I am to the colder water, sometimes getting in as late as November if it’s a mild autumn! Though I’ve built up my endurance in recent years, I’m not that brave! On cooler days, I tiptoe down the steps one by one, letting my body slowly acclimate to the temperature. Some claim diving in is the better way to do it, but for me, submerging myself inch by inch is much more pleasant.
Every swim like this surprises me, as it shows how powerful our systems are with regulating our body temperature. After just a few minutes, the chill almost vanishes—for a while, anyhow—sometimes to the point of making the warmer outside temperature feel cooler. You float and soak in the very water that made you shriek in frozen surprise minutes ago.
The fact of life is further proof of how we were made to adapt to new environments. Throughout our years, we encounter various changes to our circumstances, and for many of us, they’re not always welcome. They demand that we make adjustments, and those can upend our worlds for a while. Though our bodies themselves are designed to adapt to different situations, our minds and seeds of motivation may not cooperate as easily.
When we start a new job or school year, we might convince ourselves that we can never adjust to the various requirements we’re asked to fulfill. If we give it time, however, we’ll eventually adapt to the new routine and no longer be so overwhelmed by it. As we go through this multiple times, the experience we acquire can give us a better mindset for the next adjustment we encounter. Just like acclimating to that chilly pool water, we can have confidence that, after the initial shock, we’ll grow used to the change and may well enjoy it more than we imagined.
Similar to my choice to take a slow plunge into the water, we need to be patient with ourselves and accept that our adjustment process will no doubt be different from others. As mentioned earlier, some people prefer to do a cannonball and ignore their shivering. If that works for them, so be it, but we don’t have to conform to their methods. We all grow and adapt at different paces, and what counts is that we make the needed adjustment in the end…even if the cannonball guy is already on his third lap around the pool by the time we step onto the floor.
All this said, there is a dangerous caveat to how adeptly we can get used to adverse conditions. Though short-term exposure to challenges like cold water can have its benefits, remaining there for a long period can turn harmful, even deadly. Similarly, even the best of us can get conditioned to environments that are harsh on us physically and/or mentally. At first, we might be flabbergasted by treatment we receive or other external factors we submit to, but little by little, it becomes normal.
In cases like that, we ought to listen to our internal warning systems to get out of the pool, so to speak, before frostbite kicks in. Although our bodies allow us to acclimate to lower temperatures for a certain interval, we’ll gradually grow cold and sense that our organs can’t handle such conditions forever. Likewise, we’re not cut out to be in harsh circumstances for indefinite periods and will suffer if we let matters play out without taking action. While life presents many obstacles we can’t control independently, we need to embrace the measure of control and choices that we can make to protect ourselves from harm.
While we’re built with a number of tools to help us acclimate to changes, we’re not chameleons, able to blend in to any and every environment. We want to endeavor to make those adaptations where we can, but we shouldn’t ignore the signals that we’ve entered toxic territory. Just like we have to cover the pool as the blustery temperatures sweep in, we need to hibernate from unsafe aspects of the seasons of our lives.
KarinaBartow.com 