Change is inevitable, or is it ?

Change is inevitable - that is a mantra that I have heard since I can remember. Even as a child I was exhorted to embrace change - by parents, teachers, and later by bosses. I wonder now whether I too am guilty of having said the same? Now that I am a middle-aged man, I stand at the optimum point to reflect both on the past and the future. My youth is not so far back that it is shrouded in the mists of time, and my future paths and options are not so distant, that I cannot premeditate without a reasonable degree of accuracy.

I look around me and my life, and I see much that has changed. Over the last 15 to 20 years I have accumulated the trappings of luxury that I had not dreamt of as a child (I did have very modest dreams!!). I have a wonderful wife and two superb children. I am surrounded by the love of my extended families. So, in terms of life's progression, yes, I can concur that change has occurred.

However, when I start to strip away the allure of mouthing the obvious, I realise that what seems irrefutable to start with, shimmers when you look closer. Speaking for myself, what has really changed? I have a family - so did my parents and yours. I have tried to improve my lot over the years - so has every person in history. During this time I have met a lot of new people, travelled to a lot of new places, and ate a lot of different cuisines. Despite that, I still have the same friends, love the same food, still love mindless action movies and read a lot.
We are duped into accepting that things change, because we are focusing on the process of change, rather than the result of that change. Let me give you a few examples of what I mean when I say that our understanding shifts if we alter the prism through which we view it.
- I used to commute in a bus, now I commute in a car - but it still takes the same time.
- I used to work with paper, now I have email - but still work the same hours.
- All the advancement in technology (phones, video conferences, etc.) has not reduced my business travel.
- I have hundreds of "friends" on Facebook, but still hang out with a handful of people.
- As a child our staples were rationed because India did not produce enough - now rice is scarce because India consumes too much.
- I have eaten every type of food and on 5 continents - my favourite food is still what I used to eat, as a child.
- I have thousands of songs on my Ipod, but still listen mostly, to the artists that I grew up listening to.
- I have saved a bit of money - but still feel like I do not have enough.
- As a child I could not eat all that I wanted (monetary constraints) - now as an adult I still cannot eat all that I want (dietary constraints).
- In my teens I used to worry about the environment as a result of a nuclear war, now it is the excessive consumption of fossil fuels.
- I used to be stressed out because of my exams, now it is because of my job.
- I used to shut out unwanted intrusions when travelling, by picking up a book or a magazine - now I have headphones blaring music.

The more things change, the more they remain the same. When we look at the big picture, on a global scale, mankind and society are changing rapidly. Barriers are falling, cultures are melding, distances are shrinking and we truly are becoming one big global village.
However on a micro scale, at the individual level, what has changed? Despite all these big changes, our basic drivers have not changed since Maslow propounded his hierarchy of needs, even if we have managed to climb a few rungs. And it is the minutiae of our daily lives that have the greatest impact us, not the scenarios played out on a global scale. All this technology and advancement was supposed to free us from our labour - has it?

I think it was Mohammed Ali who said "The man who views the world at 50 exactly the same as he did at 20 has wasted 30 years of his life."

I just might have wasted a significant part of my life. What about you?