Today, more then ever before we are witnessing change taking place at a very fast rate. Globalisation has meant that we have to adapt to changes taking place whether in the field of education, or economy, or even moral values. Take for example the fact that the computer, or mobile, or camera that you buy today will become out dated, or even obsolete within six months! It seems as if today we are being inextricably being sucked into the vortex of change no matter how much we resist!
Inherent in human nature is a resistance to change, and this often takes place when one reaches middle age! This is when a man wants to settle down in life, and perhaps slow down one’s pace of life! It hurts when you are told that your mobile phone on which you splurged a few months back has become old fashioned, or you are told that you need to change your priorities, beliefs, or attitudes, otherwise, you will be labelled old fashioned! Change you can’t cope with can be stressful. It is perhaps for this reason that multi national companies encourage their employees to spend quality time with their families by going out on holidays whether abroad or at home.
Change, therefore, is stressful if you can’t go along with it! The recent introduction of radical changes in education till class tenth were rather abrupt, and they have resulted in great confusion among the students, parents, and teachers. Soon, boards will be abolished at the twelfth board level. After so many years of a traditional system of Education, students of tenth class were told that there would be no more boards for them.
Somehow, it seems as if we are fighting change by abolishing competitiveness amongst students while ironically getting sucked into the vortex of change! As long as students had to face the boards, they were more competitive, their skills were well honed, and they really studied hard, because it was a matter of survival of the fittest! Today the same students have become rather complacent about studies, and rather laid back. If change means abolishing the boards, and removing competition amongst our students, then it is a bad kind of change! Change should always be for the better…and it should be accepted with grace, not with confusion or bafflement!
The rate at which science and technology are evolving and growing is astounding but then, greater than this is the rate at which various viruses are evolving, becoming more and more resistant to antibiotics and other drugs. Take for example, SAARS, Ebola, The Hanta Virus, or Swine Flue… the list is endless of the viruses that successfully have managed to adapt. Adaptation, therefore is the only secret to success, and this is possible if we accept change which is positive. Change which makes us lazy and complacent will only ruin us. The Spartans used to leave their new born babies on the mountains because they only wanted the strongest to survive. If the baby was strong, he or she would live till the next day when the parents returned to gather the child. An extreme step, but it was necessitated by the times in which they lived!
To conclude, therefore, it is clear that, adaptation, competition, and change are inevitable. To interfere with these natural processes would be fatal. The process of natural selection might be harsh, but then it is a reality! We need to, therefore, maintain a proper balance between change, competition, and adaptation. Unfortunately, in a society which is a consumerist society, change has a commercial angle. Thus, it would be commercially viable to make mobile phones, and other products obsolete as fast as possible, so that newer products might be bought as soon as they hit the shelves! Well, I believe that if change is commercially induced, then it is unnatural, and if it is not natural, then it is not good!
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