“Impossible isn’t
something that is true to a thing. It’s something that is true to the person
doing it.”Source Unknown
Sometimes people can’t just leave well enough alone. I got
up the other day in time to wake the roosters, as is my custom, and when I went
online to check the news, it had changed. I don’t mean the news had changed
(which I expect it to, otherwise it wouldn’t be news – it would be “olds” and
that would be pretty boring. Come to think of it, the news IS pretty boring
because – wait for it – there really is nothing new under the sun). What I meant
is that they had changed the graphics, links, layout, and everything.
The people who supply me with my news had changed the way
their front page looks. I don’t remember them telling me they were going to
change it. I had no warning and, as a result, 2015 got off to a very rocky
start for me.
It’s not that I don’t like change or am resistant to it.
Heck, I change my clothes every day and shower so that today’s dirt will have
someplace clean to which to cling.
When you get right down to it, I don’t even mind the changes
that took place online when I wasn’t looking. They simply caught me by surprise
and require me to hop around the front page differently than I did before. It
is neither good nor bad; it is just different and requires me to respond
differently – and that’s where the problem lies.
It isn’t that the news viewer changed; it’s that I need to.
Me! Worse yet, I had to listen to my gray matter grumbling for hours on end
about it.
“Pete. Pete. Pete! Wake up Pete! Something’s happening out
there; you’ve got to see this. They’re calling for All Hands on Deck! Heck,
they’re even waking up the gray-haired gray matter to lend a hand. It’s a real
five-alarm disaster looming. Fonts have changed, graphics have moved around,
and links are hiding where we’ve got to scroll around to find them. For Keith’s
sake, Pete: GET UP!”
Let me assure my readers, you do NOT want to be alone inside
my head when those cells get agitated. That is one dangerous neighborhood. It’s
so tough I call it Noah’s Ark, because you either travel in pairs, or you just don’t
go there.
Anyway, once I got past the first thirty seconds or so of
sheer terror, panic, and horror, the frontal cortex, cerebrum, cerebellum, and
rest of the Yee Haw gang settled down and started to work out the new patterns
for finding what I was looking for (AKA football scores and previews of coming
mayhem) and life returned to normal. I still don’t care for the new-fangled
layout, but I’m getting used to it and should be fine until Christmas or
thereabouts when they will no doubt roll out some new and improved way of
irritating me to no end.
But that’s life, isn’t it? Things always change. In fact,
one might even call such changes a “Public Service” as one’s need to adapt
keeps the brain functioning better, just as working on puzzles is said to
sharpen the mind (or as Nietzsche put it, “That which does not kill us makes us
stronger” – which I would amend to say, “That which does not kill us DOES,
none-the-less, make us crazier).
The fact is that while we may be resistant to change, change
is mostly a positive thing in life. Changing good habits for bad habits leads
to improvements in mind, body, and soul. Many people make resolutions for the
new year during the first few days of January but struggle to keep them (for a
wide variety of reasons).
That’s why I really like taking life a day at a time. I find
facing a year to be an impossible task, but if I take things a day at a time,
it is far more manageable.
It is like the old story of the big game hunter who shot and
killed an elephant. Standing by his trophy he wondered, “How am I going to eat
all that meat?” His guide answered, “One bite at a time.”
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