12.12.08
Frankie the cat and Albert Einstein
I was watching our cat, Frankie, this morning and it got me to thinking. Everyday when I finish my shower and open the shower curtain Frankie jumps up into the tub and tries to figure out where all the water is going. Her head actually goes in little circles as she watches the water go down the drain. then she sits and stares for a couple of minutes as if waiting for the water to come back.
After this she joins me in the bedroom where she stares at the “other” cat in the closet door mirror. She paws at this other cat, I am not sure if it is a rival cat or a playmate, and the she occasionally runs and jumps at the other cat. The loud band and the bump on her head do not seem to detour her at all, as she is right back at it again. When I open the closet door, Frankie quickly runs in to find her antithesis. She checks from one end of the closet to the other making sure this other cat is not hiding in any shoes or behind any boxes. Only when she is fully satisfied there is on cat there does she come out. Then when I close the closet door she is back examining this strange, disappearing, other cat.
For some reason as I was watching Frankie this morning, I was reminded of a quote from Albert Einstein that goes something like this; “A person should look for what is, and not for what he thinks should be.” And then I remembered another Einstein quote; “Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.”
How many time do we do this same thing, at least I know that I do. I do the same thing at home or at work and then am surprised when it leads to the same results. This is not always a bad thing as good actions can lead to good results over and over again. However, as Tom at work says, “everything has a life cycle.” He is usually referring to a product or an recurring event at the Fexpo, and I am finding this more and more to be true. What worked five or ten years ago does not necessarily work today. That is one reason we are constantly bombarded for products that are “new and improved.” There are numerous shows and other events that once filled all of the buildings at the Fexpo and now have become smaller. It is often difficult for people to recognize and deal with this fact and because of this things (promotions, advertising, vendor relations, etc.) are still done the same way.
Change is necessary. It must be planned, researched, tested, and tweaked along the way, but if we do not change the way we do things, even the way we think of things, then we run the risk of becoming irrelevant.
The dearer some thing is to our heart, the more ownership we have of it, the more difficult this is to do. As Einstein also said; “Learn from yesterday, live for today, hope for tomorrow. The important thing is not to stop questioning.”
Here is hoping that as the new year approaches we are all able to take this to heart as we continue to grow and develop individually and with our specific groups.
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and New Year filled with change and growth to all!
