The Galápagos Islands’ most famous visitor was Charles Darwin. He boarded the HMS Beagle as a naturalist in 1831, at the age of 23, and circumnavigated the globe on a five year journey. Along the way, he made notes about geology and collected plant and animal species. The Galápagos Islands were just one short stop on the expedition. Though the HMS Beagle sailed among the islands for five weeks, Darwin only set foot on four of them, spending three days on Floreana and two weeks on Santiago. However, what he observed and collected there would would change the world of science, and the world at large, forever.
On the islands, Darwin collected several birds, which we now call Darwin’s finches. At the time, he thought that they were each so distinctly different, that they had to be unrelated. It was only after he returned to England with these preserved birds that the ornithologist John Gould would conclude that Darwin had collected eighteen distinct species of finch.
Remarkably, the finches of the Galápagos have continued to adapt and evolve in the present, not just over millennia. Modern scientific research, led by the married couple Peter and Rosemary Grant, has shown just how quickly a species can react to its changing environment. A severe drought in 1973 killed most of the finches on Daphne Major, the island where the Grants’ studies take place. By meticulously measuring the beak size of each surviving bird on the island, they demonstrated that the remaining finches had larger beaks, thus they were better equipped to crack open the available nuts and seeds. The finches with larger beaks had the ability to thrive because of their beak size, and they passed that trait on to succeeding generations, creating a new species.
I’ve written about adaptations found in two different species of flowers HERE, and how you should modify your caregiving as the need arises.
Change is inevitable. For all of us, not just caregivers. How you react to those changes is up to you. Digging in your heels and refusing to acknowledge that change has occurred is not healthy. Denial is a powerful weapon when you don’t want to see or accept a new reality. But it cannot last.
There are expected changes—babies enter your life, adult children leave home, health issues appear as you age, you retire from a long career. Even though you know they are coming, the change forces you to grapple with a new way of living.
It is harder to adjust to unexpected changes. If it isn’t on your radar, you don’t have time to prepare yourself. These changes can be shocking, and can knock you off your feet, throwing you off balance.
Eventually, the healthy approach is to adapt to the changes in your life’s environment. Denial will not serve you for long. You cannot ignore a badly sprained ankle because walking on it would further injure it. By adjusting your gait, a limp might accommodate the sprain for a while. But placing a brace on the ankle for support is a better adaptation.
I encourage you to examine the changes in your life, both expected and unexpected, and see where you need to make adjustments and accommodations. Maybe you even need some added outside support. Whatever the change, adapting to your current environment, like the finches in the Galápagos Islands, will ensure a better quality of life.