Evolutionary Novices: Navigating Life’s Complexities

After breaking up with his girlfriend, my adult son recently moved back home. I slipped into his room and discovered him lost in a car racing game. It looked simple enough—the button on the right controls steering, the lever is for acceleration and the button on the left for brakes. I accepted his invite and grabbed a control. I couldn’t keep the car on the track. With limited time, and low frustration suppression, I quit after the first race. A healthy life has many more controls to master than the simple levers and buttons on a video game. Learning to live in a complex world, quickly changing with technology and demands, we stumble like evolutionary novices driving high speed race cars crashing and stalling on a complex track of turns, stops and changes.

Key Definition:

Evolutionary Novices refers to an evolutionary mismatch between evolved processes, emotions, and behaviors and our current environment. Our environments change much more rapidly than our genome for acting within new environments, creating a mismatch.

Figuring Out Life

We have three-pounds of evolutionary genius tucked under a protective skull. Our brain is the tool given to learn the intricacies of this complicated life. Effectively controlling our behaviors to create an enjoyable and productive life is not so easy. Our minds are powerful. We plan, act and adjust to life. Motivations that enable change, spill into consciousness as feelings—joys and sorrows. The guiding force can be tremendously painful, shocking our soul and giving wisdom.

The ability to plan, reminisce and create sidetracks enjoyments with endless chattering of guilt and anxiety. Our thoughts routinely embark on fruitless journeys into regrettable past and unrealistic futures. We punish ourselves for past choices. We worry over events that may never happen. STOP! Stop the chattering. We need to slow down—not as much acceleration and gently drift into the curves of life. We’ll make it to the finish line. We are designed to survive. But if we slow down, we can achieve more, enjoying the subtleties; we can flourish.

Endless Advice

Everywhere we look, someone is spewing out advice on how to live. Echoing in the empty walls of our minds we hear them.

“If you do this or do that you will be happy.”

They paint on a smile, and say, “look at me, do what I do and you can have a fake smile too.” 

I wrote in regards to the Psychology fanatic blog: “One of the gigantic pitfalls of writing a wellness blog is the constant flow of patronizing advice. As wellness instructors, we often address symptoms, ignoring the deeper motivating causes. The patronizing advice, served with an arrogant air, condemns sufferers for their experience without offering practical guidance uniquely catered to the reader’s situation” (Murphy, 2021).

Complex Solutions

There are happy people out there, but happiness is a complicated solution, composed of more than a list of do’s and don’ts. Dispositions, personalities, early environments, and opportunities are all part of this complex compilation of factors.

We are forced to take this mixed bag of tricks, examine what we have, work to refine ourselves, and find what works best in our own individual situation to achieve our potential, and find a measure of happiness. Consequently, we only succeed through continued efforts of confronting our evolutionary novice abilities.

Donella Meadows, Ph.D. (1941-2001), leading expert on systems thinking, explains:

“Resilience is not the same thing as being static or constant over time. Resilient systems can be very dynamic.” While our overall response may appear as stable, the interior processes are not stable at all. “Static stability is something you can see; it’s measured by variation in the condition of a system week by week or year by year. Resilience is something that may be very hard to see, unless you exceed its limits, overwhelm and damage the balancing loops, and the system structure breaks down” (Meadows, 2008).

We have the cognitive resources to experiment with life and gain wisdom in our own journey to optimize our experience. Our experiments will be littered with flawed hypothesis and changing results. We may find that what made us happy in our twenties doesn’t work in our thirties. We must adapt instead of neurotically hanging on to the past.

See Life is Complex for more on this topic

Associated Concepts

• Eudaimonia: This is a Greek term often translated as ‘happiness’ or ‘well-being.’ It represents a state of flourishing, where an individual experiences a sense of fulfillment, purpose, and overall thriving in life.
• PERMA Model: This model, developed by psychologist Martin Seligman, is a well-being theory that identifies five essential elements for a flourishing and fulfilling life: positive emotions, engagement, relationships, meaning, and accomplishment.
• Self-Actualization: Abraham Maslow’s concept of self-actualization, which refers to the realization of one’s potential and the pursuit of personal growth, aligns well with the concept of eudaimonia.
• Psychological Flexibility: This skill allows an individual to adapt to changing situational demands and to pursue a rich and meaningful life, even in the presence of psychological challenges.
• A Meaningful Life: This typically refers to living in a way that aligns with one’s values, beliefs, and passions. It often involves engaging in activities and relationships that bring a sense of fulfillment, purpose, and satisfaction.
• Sustainable Happiness: This concept refers to a long-lasting sense of well-being and contentment that is not dependent on external circumstances. It encompasses a deep fulfillment that comes from meaningful relationships, personal growth, contributing to the community, and living in harmony with the environment.

A Few Words by Psychology Fanatic

By intervening in the painful spinning of thoughts, we create space for more creative action. Slow down that racing mind. We travel faster with care, enjoying small nuances of living we have previously missed in the blur of fast pace living. Life is good; but complicated. Our systems are evolutionary novices, not ready for cruise control—we must mindfully intervene to enjoy the blessings of living.

Last Update: November 30, 2025

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References:

Meadows, Donnella H. (2008). Thinking in Systems. Chelsea Green Publishing; Illustrated edition. ISBN-10: 1603580557
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Murphy, T. Franklin (2021). Patronizing Advice. Psychology Fanatic. Published: 4-9-2021; Accessed: 11-3-2022. Website: https://psychologyfanatic.com/stop-patronizing-me/
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