“You can’t step into the same river twice.”
A flowing river constantly changes its contents: the waters in front of us move on and others replenish them.
Heraclitus says the cosmos functions in the same way way: new things come into being, others die, and everything is transformed.
Look around:
• New laws are enacted and others are no longer enforced.
• New styles of expression become fashionable and others are relegated to the dustheap.
Thus, we need to continually update our outlook and make sure that the strategies we employ to the problems and opportunities before us.
For example, I once read about a group of Russian immigrants in Los Angeles who had the tradition of celebrating New Year’s Eve on the afternoon of December 30th.
A newspaper reporter asked them, “Why are you celebrating the arrival of the New Year thirty-six hours before everyone else?” One of them, a man in his late sixties replied, “When we were growing up in the Soviet Union, we were very poor, and we found that it was a lot cheaper to get a band on the afternoon of the thirtieth.”
The curious thing is that these people had prospered in America and they could have easily have afforded lavish entertainment on New Year’s Eve, yet they continued to celebrate it on the previous afternoon.
The point is: once a rule, pattern, or behavior is firmly established, it’s very difficult to eliminate even if the original reason for its generation has gone away.
Remember: every right idea is eventualy the wrong idea.Innovation means not only generating new ideas, but escaping from obsolete ones as well.
When examining an existing rule, program, or policiy, it’s always a good practice to ask, “Why did this rule come to be?” Then follow this question with, “Do these reasons still exist?” If the answer is “No,” then eliminate the rule.
— What assumptions should you update?
— What’s obsolete and can be discarded?
— How can you freshen your outlook?
From Creative Whack Pack Card of the Day; highly recommended.
Nowhere more true than our industry – I estimate the current rate of change at 15% here,
–h