Embracing Change, Quoth He

It is not the strongest of the species that survive, nor the most intelligent, but the one most responsive to change.  ~Author unknown, commonly misattributed to Charles Darwin

There is nothing I enjoy better than an elegantly designed solution to a problem you didn’t realize you even had.  There is always a way to make the business of our daily life work faster, more efficiently, and more conveniently than before.  If we thoughtfully design how we move in our lives, we can spend more time doing the things we want to do instead of, say, standing in line at the post office during our lunch break.

The only difference between a rut and a grave is their dimensions.  ~Ellen Glasgow

Of course, there is nothing more frustrating than finding a great solution and being unable to implement it.  Whether in my professional life or in my personal life, it is aggravating to know that there is a better way to accomplish something and being stuck with The Old Way simply because others are unwilling to embrace change.

I find that too often, in the words of W.H. Auden:

We would rather be ruined than changed;
We would rather die in our dread
Than climb the cross of the moment
And let our illusions die.

I am refining the focus of my blog to become a platform for sharing and exploring new ways to solve our problems in business and new methods of managing our “housekeeping” in our personal lives.  It is also, of course, a platform for me to promote what I think is exciting in terms of technological advancement.

Neither a wise man nor a brave man lies down on the tracks of history to wait for the train of the future to run over him.  ~Dwight D. Eisenhower

I am excited about this refined focus – sharing the technologies that I think can bring progress to our world.  I am looking forward to seeing what new things are to come, both the great new inventions and the smaller designs that do incremental adjustments to make our lives a little simpler.

After you’ve done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully.  After five years, look at it with suspicion.  And after ten years, throw it away and start all over.  ~Alfred Edward Perlman, New York Times, 3 July 1958

I will add that not every change is innately good and pure.  Some changes bring nothing more than clutter and complexity into an already overburdened human life.  But you never know when you will find the next Great Idea. They used to say that the “horseless carriage” was a passing fad.  The only thing you can do is to keep your mind open to a new way of doing things and to be unafraid of embracing a new idea.

They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.  ~Confucius

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