A clerk at a Philadelphia airline counter picked up the telephone and heard the caller ask, “How long does it take to go from Philadelphia to Phoenix?”
She was busy with another customer just then and intended to put the caller on hold.
“Just a minute,” she replied.
As she was about to press the hold button, the caller said, “Thank you,” and hung up.
We live in an age when it seems almost anything is possible. But a trip of a couple thousand miles in a few minutes?
Our time is one of unprecedented change. I understand that 2005 was the first year that there were more spam e-mails sent than cans of Spam sold. And if you wonder what a can of Spam is, then you see how much things have changed.
In a restaurant, a mother noticed her eleven-year-old daughter staring at a movie poster on the wall. The picture portrayed Superman standing in a phone booth. The girl’s mother whispered to her husband, “Doesn’t she know who Superman is?”
He told her it was worse than that. “She doesn't know what a phone booth is.”
I heard someone mention that he believes most of the changes that will ever take place already have occurred. I am sure that isn’t so. Our new reality is one of constant and unending change.
Some changes can be good and some we may feel are not for the best. Most change is uncomfortable and awkward at first. But, of course, if we don’t occasionally feel awkward with what we’re doing, maybe we are not doing anything new. And unless we’d rather live in the past, we’ll be happiest learning to embrace this world of change and to change and adapt along with it.
The world can still be a wonderful and exciting place to live. Do you believe that? If so, change with the changes. Resist your resistance to changing. Your attitude toward change is one of the most important measures of determining whether you can be happy.
-- Steve Goodier
Image: flickr.com/Claudio Montes