# Commentary: The art of adapting

/ Published Nov. 30, 2023
FORT BELVOIR, Va. , 
Change was near. Its approach stewed in my gut with every new headline heralding lawmakers’ push to scale back liberal telework policies at federal agencies. If I’m honest, I expected it to come.

Most of us with an office job would’ve balked if we’d been told five years ago that we’d soon drop our commutes and regular office routines for a reality where we worked from home in comfort – or chaos, depending on the amount of space we had and the number of people in our circle. And not just for one week, but for months, even years for some. Whether that was a positive or negative thing depends on our perspective and personality.

The change was good for me, and I embraced it. As an introvert, I thrived. Without friendly chatter or spontaneous interruptions from my workmates, I did my job as a news and feature writer with a sharper focus, so much so that the Defense Department started publishing the articles I wrote about Defense Logistics Agency employees and their work on its website. The new need for an editor of agency-wide stories about DLA’s role in COVID-19 also gave me fresh challenges. At night, I threw myself into my craft as a paper filigree artist.

And then the pandemic eased its grip on the world. We dipped our toes in change once again, gradually returning to our desks but with the flexibility of a hybrid work schedule. Nonetheless, I grumbled about letting go of full-time telework. I returned because I had to. Somewhere along the line, I learned to adjust. So did my cats.

Now, change is back. Come January, we'll all be in the office Tuesdays through Thursdays at a minimum. I protested, privately and openly – to my supervisors, work buddies, family and anyone who'd listen.

Then it dawned on me that my impulse to resist was futile, and the negative energy I cast toward stopping something I couldn’t control pulled me down mentally and emotionally. I heard the sharp words of an Army sergeant major I once knew: “Suck it up, Reece.” And that meant changing my outlook. 

                990830-D-D0441-1001                            Beth Reece, a writer for Defense Logistics Agency Public Affairs, rappels Australian style while serving in the Army in South Korea in 1990.            SHARE IMAGE:Download ImageImage DetailsPhoto By: CourtesyVIRIN: 990830-D-D0441-1001The fact is, I've done things throughout my career that I didn't think I could do and plenty I plain old didn't want to do. When my first editor assigned me a story on an Army rappelling school stipulating that I also be an active participant, I – the former fat kid with lingering self-confidence issues – refused. But I was a private, and the sergeant got his way. I look back on those two weeks of training-slash-reporting with awe. I didn’t just graduate. I told the story with description and authority that only someone who's been there and done that can pull off. The picture one of my instructors snapped of me roping down a cliff face-down on the final day exposes a grin that’s now a timely reminder: I can do more than I think I can. 

A decade later, I was in my first job as a federal employee, living alone in military housing in Wiesbaden, Germany, when the base commander declared all civilians had 30 days to move off post. How could I live on the economy without speaking or understanding German? I wasn't independent enough to live amid the locals and without American conveniences. Still, the decision was out of my hands, so I found a translator to help me navigate the rent ads in German newspapers. Every apartment owner we approached turned me down. Then after three weeks of hunting, an elderly widow agreed to let me rent an upstairs unit in her duplex. We mainly communicated through awkward body language at first, but when it was time for me to head back to the U.S., I mourned the end of the tender bond we’d formed. What a marvel that the change I so feared became one of the biggest blessings of my time abroad.

The most severe change in my life was one I was terrified I wouldn’t conquer: cancer. For all the hell chemo unleashed on my body, all the soul-searching and self-interrogation the disease erupted in my psyche, it eventually yielded peace by drawing me back to God and teaching me to trust him. I’ve been in remission for almost seven years now, and not a night passes that I don’t say a prayer of gratitude for the spiritual healing I spent too long rejecting.

We're all called at some point to do hard things, things that we’d rather avoid. How we choose to get through them matters as much as the fact that we do. Looking back, I know I’ve overcome enough change in my life to realize that being in the office more regularly again is just another blip – and accepting it isn’t the hardest thing I’ll ever do, no matter how much I dread it now. So I draw strength from where I’ve gone before.

I’ll adapt. And sooner or later, I’ll see the goodness that’s sometimes only clear in hindsight.