No One Size Fits It All: On Choosing the Right Measure for Each Moment
Life's circumstances are not binary—neither purely desperate nor purely normal—and they demand different emotional and strategic approaches. The writer argues that we must learn to consciously shift our mindset, resilience, and energy according to what each situation actually requires, rather than defaulting to habit or waiting for crisis to force change.
A saying goes that when we meet people, the first thing we look at or take note of is their shoes...aside from being used for walking and protecting our feet, they could do a number on your outfit, even more interesting they could either make your life amazing or miserable (unfitting shoes are not recommended). How shoes and times are linked, we'll get there eventually. In the meantime...
Growing up I often came across the first part of the title a lot. I heard more than one person say it in the heat of tough moments. The interesting part about desperate times and desperate measures was the fact that the end justified the means. You were permitted to act a certain way (mostly out of character) because things went off the rails. And the human love for anything that excuses excessive tendencies is simply unending.
Away from desperate times, we were/are wired to act "normally" through everything else in life. That probably explains why we struggle with situations that are not necessarily "desperate" but then do not also fall under the category of "normal" circumstances. We fail to realize that no one size fits it all when navigating through life's circumstances are concerned.
Just like how we wear different outfits and shoes for different occasions, we need to wear different mindsets, temperaments and strategies in different Life situations. The same way we navigate a heartbreak can't be the same way we navigate a huge success, neither can it be the same way we navigate the grinding process in a bid to make it.
I came to this realization one time when I was having an emotionally difficult time. My adrenaline and serotonin levels were very low, and I was struggling with accomplishing basic tasks. I was frustrated with myself like most times and then I realized that just like the wrong shoe, I was wearing the wrong attitude in the face of a draining situation. I needed to put on my resilience coat and activate my awareness to the change I was experiencing which I otherwise do not wear on a daily. That realization helped me through a rough patch in one piece. Previously I'd made it out completely disheveled and needed extra time to reset. This time I just changed energy sizes, smooth transitioning we could call it.
Most of our lives are habitual and driven on autopilot. Sometimes we experience turbulent situations like mine above and expect the autopilot to adequately handle them. We will of course struggle more than necessary. Again, just like shoes a wrong size will either be too tight and uncomfortable or too big and burdensome. Even more uncomfortable is wearing the wrong shoe to the wrong place, say high heels to a mountain race. Failure is obviously assured. While that example sounds funny, crazy and even impossible, most of us approach circumstances exactly just like that.
The point is, to learn how to better navigate through our circumstances we have to identify, assess and understand situations for what they are and then proceed to decide how we will act. We don't have to snap out of autopilot only when times have become desperate. The same energy needed to get you to success point isn't the same energy needed to maintain the success.
Different sizes for different situations because no one size fits it all and no energy/attitude fits every circumstance we have faced, are facing and will ever face in Life.
- Wandji Winifred
This piece was written in early 2023, a time when many were emerging from prolonged pandemic-related strain and reassessing how they moved through difficulty. The reflection speaks to a common contemporary experience: the exhaustion of treating all challenges with the same worn-out emotional tools, and the quiet realization that flexibility itself is a skill.
Then and now, the piece offers a corrective to both the romanticization of 'desperate measures' and the false comfort of autopilot living. It dignifies the intermediate struggles—the grinding, the transitions, the emotionally difficult stretches that are neither emergency nor ease—and names them as worthy of intentional response. That permission to shift energy mid-difficulty remains a necessary counterweight to rigidity.