Change

Few years ago, I saw a quote in the Times of India - "Change is the only constant in this world." I simply loved that quote. It was expertly quoted truth. Giving value of "change" to a constant was a literary trick. Plus, It seemed so right - everything changes as we go along. I quickly believed it and was inspired for change to the core.

Today, I realize how much that particular quote is misinterpreted in this world (including me). Today, everyone wants to change for the sake of change. Bulk of the youth is craving to be different than everyone else, just for the heck of it. What they don't realize is the change in themselves comes at the cost of their own character and more importantly, character of the society they live in. If you see all this from a broader view, we see that whole of the society is changing but it is going nowhere. This is because there's no certain direction for its change. You know what, this is true for each of the individual as well. I see a lot of people acting differently from one day to next just because they want to change. They end up making no progress in any particular direction.

I guess, the point I want to make here is that change without any thought is not only useless but harmful. Let's say we have been following a particular way of doing things (tradition, if you will) for a long time. Before changing it, we should think about it. We should first think if the change is required. If it is indeed the case, we should define a direction of the change and then keep on making forward progress in that direction instead of changing just for the sake of it. In the due course of the change, it may happen that we will find out that direction we have taken is wrong. That is perfectly fine. That will initiate another change in direction which will also be because of thinking, learning from the previous course of change. Important thing is, each change has its own direction, its own purpose.

I want to give an example of a moving target missile. It changes its direction only when the target moves. Not only that, the change in the direction is based on the change in the position of the target. The change is guided by that motive.

Remember, I am not denying the importance of change here. I am just trying to emphasize the point that direction of change is equally important as its magnitude. In a nutshell, I want to change the original quote to - "Change is the only constant vector in this world."