Meghan Powers '23 RGLP Reflection: The Importance of Adaptability

Being adaptable is one of the most useful qualities a person can have. In a cross-cultural context, adaptability is not only useful, but also capable of leading to deeper understandings between and within groups of people. To really be adaptable doesn't just require skill, but also willingness; therefore, to show adaptability is a sign of respect. When you're in a new setting, or meeting somebody with a different cultural background, it is a gesture of good faith to try and learn from your surroundings — more often than not, they have something to teach you. Relatedly, adaptability is a sign of humility. There's a certain arrogance that comes along with assuming that your own ways are best in the midst of a new cultural experience, which undermines a great deal of the goal of intercultural experiences in the first place. Therefore, the willingness to put aside what you think you know in favor of open-mindedness, which is one way to define adaptability, is an incredibly important trait in cross-cultural experiences, whether in a professional or a personal context.

Being adaptable isn't always about surface-level behaviors, like trying new foods while traveling abroad. It also means considering the values and attitudes that come with people and cultures, and how they may differ with your own. Adaptability can, in this way, be a form of self-awareness. It isn't important that everyone behave the same and have the same values but being able to see yourself as one type of person out of hundreds of millions of possible options is very useful in gaining some perspective. It can be incredibly enriching to speak with and understand people of different cultural backgrounds. On its own, this conclusion seems incredibly obvious, but people are often unwilling to leave their comfort zone and surmount cultural barriers. A final way to think about the importance of adaptability, then, is that it requires courage. There's certainly a line between adapting to a cultural context and allowing your own identity to be subsumed, but the deepest interpersonal interactions necessitate reciprocity. In the context of a conversation, if you demonstrate a willingness to adapt and understand, then if your conversation partner has the same mindset, they will demonstrate a willingness to help you understand, as well as understand you themselves. In this way, there's a certain leap of faith that comes with adaptability, but more often than not, it proves infinitely worthwhile.