Adapting to the new normal

13 August 2012

I wrote this blog post last week, when the temperatures in St. Louis were still blazing. Thankfully, things have cooled down a bit (the high today is only supposed to be 84!), but I think my thoughts remain valid. And I’m pretty sure we’ll see some pretty hot temps in August!

It’s amazing what adaptable creatures humans are. When circumstances change, we change our standards.

I don’t know if you’ve heard, but we’ve had a very hot summer in St. Louis. It’s all anyone seems to talk about. Before the end of July, we’d already had 11 days where the temperature reached 105 or above. This is not the desert; these temperatures are crazy.

In the past, when we’ve had heat waves, they’ve been short-lived. So we would accept them as temporary (if miserable) anomalies. This year, week after week we’ve had triple digit temperatures. And we’re adapting.

My dog isn’t getting late-afternoon walks any more (it’s just too hot). He’s adapting. We’re adapting to the fact that our electricity bills are going to be extra high. I stopped rescheduling appointments with a client who doesn’t have central air—if we wait for it to cool down, we’ll never get this work done. So we just work in the heat, drink lots of water, and sweat a lot.

Is all this adapting good? I think it is, as long as we don’t lose sight of what we want. In other words, we should try not to use the new normal as an excuse to stop doing beneficial things.

For example, if you have an exercise routine, like running, that might not be safe to do during a heat wave, find a way to exercise indoors, rather than giving it up completely. Or if the heat makes it impossible to do yard work, set the alarm clock a half hour early and do it before it gets insanely hot, rather than letting your yard turn into a weedy wasteland.

Of course, this applies to many other situations. If your mother moves in due to health concerns and you become a caregiver, you’ll adapt to an entirely new routine. But that doesn’t mean you should let go of doing beneficial things for yourself. If you take a job an hour away, you’ll be spending a lot more time in the car. But maybe you can adapt by listening to audio books and make the commute time beneficial.

Things change. We adapt. Just try to make adjusting to the new normal as beneficial as possible.

Tagged with: adaptability, habits, routines