I always remember how my grandparents and even my parents reacted to technology and modernization. They were both amazed and reluctant. They would always say that life during their younger years was a lot simpler and cheaper.
Three or four decades later, life has become more complicated, yet tasks have been made easier. Letters and telegrams were the only forms of communication my parents used at one time, and they were able to cope with it. Now that mobile phones, internet access and social media are in place, communication isn’t supposed to be a problem. There is no way information will be missed, because everything can be accessed, everything is made available.
Why is communication still an issue? Is this the part of change that our forefathers refused to accept? They must have guessed how technology would affect family ties and how it supersedes the essence of camaraderie and togetherness.
In a coffee shop, I used to see a group of people with their mobile phones in their hands. Either they were busy playing with it or preoccupied with updating themselves in social media. They were all sitting beside each other, so I assumed they were friends. They looked like strangers because they were not really conversing with each other. Frustrating, isn’t it?
There was one comic strip I have read in the newspaper where a father went to a mobile shop to have his phone checked because he said it looked like it wasn’t working. The technician said his phone was perfectly fine. So, the father asked, “Then why are my children not calling me?” This is the sad truth. In this era, where technology has become our way of life, relationships suffer. The bond between parents and children, friends and colleagues, has changed over time.
While we enjoy the advantages of this change and modernization, some things are taken for granted.
Medicine, on the other hand, has had a lot of breakthroughs over the years. Organ transplants, invasive devices and computer-generated procedures are being used for a more effective and efficient delivery of care. We have prolonged and have improved the quality of life. With the latest advancements in medicine, people have more access to health care and many have benefited from this. Tuberculosis, for instance, at one stage became a killer disease during World War II, but it’s now treatable with the discovery of a combination of drugs. A patient who suffered from a heart attack will have either a bypass surgery or a stent; thus, a sick heart can now heal more effectively. These and so many others advances have helped us to survive.
I’ve read two motivational books that are both inspiring and have had a great impact on change for me: Who Moved My Cheese? by Spencer Johnson and Our Iceberg is Melting by John Kotter and Holger Rathgeber. Both of these books are used to explain how change can affect our lives and how we should deal with it.
Change can be scary if you don’t know where you are heading. Uncertainties can build up anxiety; thus, resistance is highly expected. Most of us are just too afraid to get out from our comfort zones. There are situations where change is worth a try if we only look at it from another perspective. Change, whether we like it or not, will constantly take place. It’s not the change that matters, it’s on how we look at it and how it will affect our way of life.
We always assume that being different from the norms will make us unloved and unacceptable. If it makes us better individuals, why should we care if we are different from the rest?
Embrace change if it is for the common good. Resist it if our worth and values are being compromised.
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