don's report archive

Wellness in the Headlines
(Don's Report to the World)

Change
Tuesday January 16, 2001

A popular French expression is (I'll spare you the French language version!) "The more things change, the more they stay the same." It is a way of expressing the deja vu (oops!) idea that some things do recur in life. For instance, you manage to overcome one set of challenges and then others, which you thought were behind you, rise again. Thus, you discover that you must again deal with the same or similar issue.

The fact is that most things of consequence do change, including everything from your career challenges, your relationships, your abilities, your expectations, and even your values. Of course some of these things stay the same or mostly so but much does change with time. Therefore, an ability to manage change becomes a key variable in your ability to stay healthy and experience a successful life.

Don't you agree? Is this not consistent with your own life experience so far?

"What IS change?" According to Webster, change is "to become different, to pass from one phase to another, to undergo transformation and transition." This is what happens in life, we change as do all organisms -- the economy changes, society changes, our needs, preferences, and desires change -- almost everything changes and very little stays the same.

Yet, despite the fact that it happens all the time, change brings lots of stress. This is the case today as it has been in the past -- don't expect this to "change" any time soon. Futurists and others who write about these things believe the rate of change in years to come will be unprecedented. We live in a global information age and many workers are literally running faster to stay in the same place, like Alice in her fictional Wonderland. Only now the nature of the change for so many is not so wonderful, because too few have learned to welcome, manage, and turn to their advantage this change phenomenon.

Consider this: The amount of information generated from 1960 to 1985 equaled what had previously taken five thousand years; further, this doubling occurred again in last fifteen years! The current estimate is that the next doubling will occur in five years--hold on to your hat!

Before we scare you any more, please note that you need not be a helpless victim of change, like so many. You can take more control of change. Leland Kaiser, one of my former professors when I was studying for a doctorate in the late seventies, said, "Don't wait for the future, invent it now." We can do some of that if we actively practice the art of self-management. Tomorrow I'll offer a few tips for doing so.

Meanwhile, enjoy the rest of the day. Tomorrow will be different, in some ways unlike what you expected or might hope for. But, that's no reason not to look on the bright side of life -- enjoy.

(Ed. Note: Views expressed in this and other columns are those of the author and not necessarily those of the SeekWellness Editorial Board.)

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