Things Changing

Change is a constant. Always has been. Always will be. Things exist in this moment and remembered in the next. Future is hoped for, dreamed about, made up, engineered, and maybe planned. But it is not real until the present shifts into what exists in the next moments, the future.

Organizations plan. People plan. Governments plan. If we care about what we are doing and value what we believe, we will imagine the future and try to make it happen. Saying it is so does not make it so.

A lot of energy, resources, ideas, effort and cooperation must be present to build a plan and produce results. There is no guarantee that the future will unfold as we wish. No, it is most likely going to be whatever it will be, with or without our help. With certainty, I believe we can improve on results if we plan for them and work for them. It means changing our behavior, our actions along the way. It does not mean we have to change what we believe or value. However, reality forces us to accept the unpleasant regardless of our wishes.

Things degrade over time. they rust, rot, wear out or slowly disappear for one reason or another. We meet new people, get to know them, love them or like them a lot, and then watch the relationships ebb and many fade away to nothing. Even the ones that don’t, the ones we devote so much love and time to, will die and leave us alone at some point. We will remember them. We will value our memories of them, but they will no longer exist at our side. Only memories of them.

Those memories are important. They keep the deceased person alive for us. They changed our lives, and we live on with those changes. Those folks changed the world. Maybe in a big way or a tiny one. Maybe they changed the world by merely being our friend. The world was a better place then, right?

Change is like that. happy or not, we live through and with change constantly. It may seem like a bad thing, but it usually provides opportunity. Those opportunities pile up, accumulate. They are the grist and cause of much future change. These are good things in the main. They are to be valued.

We tend to badmouth change. We focus on how change lessens our pleasure or causes new pains or costs us more or eliminates a much-loved thing in our life. But change brings new zest, ideas and pleasures to life, as well. We know this. We see it. We come to value it eventually if not in the split second of change.

I think back on the cars that brightened my days long ago. Revisiting them at today’s car shows and museums recalls memories, but we can see how better engineered the cars of today have become. We have safety features and conveniences that were merely hinted at decades ago. Today those advancements are broadly expected. They were bigger then, heavier, and sweepingly present. But today’s cars are safer, quieter, softer ride, stupendous sound systems, backup cameras, automated rearview mirrors, automatic everything, even the windshield wipers and headlamps. Think about those advancements. Think about the smooth transmissions and much improved gas mileage. Think about the comfort features that once were rare. Air conditioning was like that, remember?

Yes, things change. Ideas change. Beliefs change. Attitude and behavior change. Embrace them all and learn how life will become better, larger and creative. This is the stuff of life that matters. Learning to live with this dynamic allows us to change, adapt and do better work to earn a better living. Ignoring change does the opposite. Becoming the negative rarely works out well. Learn this one lesson, and our life truly becomes something startlingly more. And different.

It is a good thing. Mostly.

June 28, 2024