Everything Still Must Change

"Everything must change

Nothing stays the same

Everyone must change

No one stays the same..."

Bernard Ighner

Bernard Ighner wrote "Everything Must Change" in 1974. It is a song lamenting the certainty and pain of personal loss and change. This song has been recorded by at least 57 different artists. The lyrics are haunting and deliver an undeniably true message - everything must - and does - change. While the song speaks to the inevitability of change on a personal level, in a broader sense it also speaks to the universal truth of change.

Change - natural change - has occurred every day since the beginning of Earth's time, around 4.5 billion years ago. The planets still revolve around the sun; the seasons change; day becomes night and again becomes day. These predictable and unchanging cycles of change have been man's guideposts for around five million years, governing his life in waking and sleeping, planting and harvesting, hunting and gathering - working and resting. The speed of natural change has been a constant for most of mankind's existence.

Over time, even with civilization rocking discoveries like fire, and inventions such as the wheel, life still went on at the same nature driven pace. Even as cities emerged and grew, most cultures remained primarily agrarian and tied to the nature's changing cycles.

With the dawn of industrialization in the mid 1800s, people were drawn to cities for better paying jobs and a significant man-driven change took root - production work. In this work setting, speed dictated by factory owners drove employees' working time and output, rather than the day's natural cycle. Speed and quantity - and profit were the employers' goals.

One of history's most dramatic and life altering accomplishments was the harnessing of electricity for home and commercial use in 1882. Generated electricity allowed man to significantly alter his work schedule, as well as make his personal life more convenient. People could now work more efficiently at night, making the three-shift production a more common work environment. The speed of man-driven change increased.

Electricity led to the invention of the television - another more subtle and yet powerful, dimension to the dynamic of change. With television, viewers could instantly hear - and see - events as they happened. TV also created a change in the way society perceived itself, driven by advertising that often depicted the "good life" in terms of the material possessions people acquired. The unspoken reality for most people was that in order to have more, they had to work more - and for them, the speed of change in their lives increased a little more.

The invention of the transistor in 1947 was hailed as a major innovation in electronics technology. It ultimately led to the further development of the computer as we know it today. The computer, coupled with the development of what we now know as the Internet in the mid 1970s marks a watershed point at which change began occurring faster and became less linear and more exponential. It is clear from looking at the dates that major changes have occurred and the decreasing time between each change that one change in technology now had the increasing ability to spawn more change, which in turn, spawned even more change.

So, what is the effect of the significant increase in man-driven change on our society? We have certainly benefited from many of the changes. Advances in medicine, computer science, communication and the availability of information have all come about because changes occurred, primarily through computer technology.

Is there a downside? Every day, we are increasingly overwhelmed with information from multiple sources, each competing for attention. As employees, we are expected to absorb and utilize a seemingly unending stream of information from email, reports, data and spreadsheets from a variety of sources. In our homes, we are bombarded with information from the Internet, TV, magazines and newspapers. All of this instant information, coupled with the frantic pace of life, results an amazing amount of information for most of us to take in and use. The question becomes - is there a cost?

Consider the effect on a person who lived 100 years ago being thrust into life in 2007. Could he deal with the complexity and speed of change? Could he make sense of it? Would he survive without serious emotional consequences?

Change, or more importantly, the speed with which man-driven change occurs, is recognized as a major contributor to stress, anxiety and burnout in today's workplace. Is there is a point at which an organization finds itself overloaded with information and can no longer function effectively? What about the employees in those organizations?

What about families' ability to cope with every day living? Does the human brain have a point at which its capacity to take in and manipulate the constantly increasing flow of information overloads? These are serious questions to consider and there are very few answers available.

Nature driven change is a constant universal process of evolution that has been occurring at its own speed for millions of years. Man-driven change has occurred as a result of his insatiable curiosity, in jumps and starts, for several thousand years - until now. The breathtaking depth of information that technology has created and made available today is literally beyond the average person's comprehension.

Change always has and always will be an essential and driving aspect of life. Without change, society would stop advancing and growing intellectually. Change stimulates and excites our curious minds. Without change, the mind would become stagnant. We thrive on change - as long as we can keep it in perspective. For these reasons we must learn how to manage the growing body of information that man-driven change is producing in ways that use the information wisely and in the best interests of subscribers. Realizing this goal is a major 21^st century challenge. Otherwise, the question becomes, does man control change, or does change control man?

"The young become the old

And mysteries do unfold

Cause that's the way of time

Nothing and no one goes unchanged"