Adaptability

Much like reaction time in sports, my edge in life is adaptability, and I believe it’s one of the most important skills in life to have. 適応性 (Tekiosei)

Contrary to what many of us think, we puny humans actually control very little of our lives. We can’t control our height, the traffic, the weather, who our parents our, what other people think, etc. So much of what happens is done to us, and we have to adapt.

It’s often construed as lack of backbone, or being a pushover, but adaptability takes a lot of patience and ability to adjust to other people. Over the course of my life, I’ve met so many different people: people who are much more intelligent than me, people much more athletic to me, people much less fortunate that I am, people have no common sense, people who are technology wizzes, people who cheat on tests, people who don’t wash dishes, people who are angry all the time. It’s impossible to change everyone, and people don’t want to change. We don’t have that power. That’s part of maturity: understanding that other people will be who they are and adjusting oneself to fit with that person as much as possible. Obviously in extreme cases staying away is the best course of action, but that might not work out in cases where you have to work with that person or do business.  (Juu-nin to-iro)= everyone has their own tastes. Deal with it.

Robert’s Keys to adaptability in real life:

1)      Understand people are different than you

2)      Have an open mind – don’t judge too quickly.

3)      Realize you’re not perfect yourself…….everyone, including myself (and probably especially myself) has a lot of quirks, etc…….just because someone else’s quirks are something you don’t appreciate doesn’t mean it’s wrong or that they have to change.

4)      Experience a lot of different things: try a lot of different jobs, experiment with new ideas, take on different tasks……the more new things one tries, the more you get used to adapting and understanding what kind of adaptions need to be made.

5)      Accept that you won’t always get what you want. Compromise. Leniency. Compassion. You can’t have your cake and eat it too.

In a fantasy baseball season, so many changes are going to happen on a daily basis , it is impossible not to make moves if one wants to be successful. Tiny changes in information affect a lot of what we do.

Robert’s Keys to adaptability in fantasy baseball:

1.)    Don’t ever be satisfied with you team. Even if you have the top 21 players in fantasy baseball all on your 21-player roster, you can sell high on one of those players. No one is “untouchable.”

2.)    Think beforehand what you would do before the news breaks, such as if your closer gets supplanted, or someone on your team gets injured……..be prepared for the worst.

3.)     = (Nana Korobi, ya oki)  Fall seven, get up eight (Dwyane Wade commercial). Depends on the league, but don’t give up on head to head leagues……..a few 9-1 or 10-0 victories will get even the worst of teams back in it, and even in rotisserie you never know if you can pick up the next Alfonso Soriano-2^nd half 2013.

Fantasize on,

Robert Yan