She's Not Dead Yet!
Tue, January 3, 2012 | Post a Comment | 
The Point: Change happens. Don’t fight it, use it to improve your life.A horse? Really?
Dr. Blas Camillo of Fort Lauderdale, FL told me today about his 95 year old Aunt Patricia. She came to Florida from Colombia, South America, over 50 years ago.
Recently she was telling her grandchildren about her childhood. One of her many recollections involved going to school in Colombia. It seems transportation was a lot different back then. The way she got to school was by riding a horse! She told the kids about remembering clearly the first time she heard a radio, the first time she saw a car and many other new and exciting inventions.
She has seen the world change.
She has not only experienced the world evolving from the horse and buggy era to the space age, she has changed countries, going from the peaceful life of rural Colombia to the incredible hustle of life in South Florida.
Surprise!
Last week her family was surprised to hear her say she now wanted a Facebook account! It seems Aunt Patricia doesn’t like to travel and has rarely gone back to visit her relatives in Colombia. In fact she’s the only one in the family who even knows who many of these relatives are. So she heard about Facebook and thought, that’s the answer! I’ll get on Facebook and we can make contact back to everyone on Colombia.
Who knows if it will work, but it at least gives her an opportunity. So one of her granddaughters opened her an account and now she’s on Facebook!
Maybe that’s her secret!
When I told this story to our Webmaster and Graphic Artist Venessa Sylvester she said “Maybe that’s her secret. The fact that she has learned to be flexible and adapt to all the changes she has seen all her life. Maybe that’s the reason she is alive and active at 95 years old!” I think Venessa is on to something. Instead of resisting change she adapts.
When others fight and resist progress, she just rolls with it.
There’s a lesson on winning from Aunt Patricia.
We all have to deal with the stress of change in our lives. Most of these changes are out of our control. A whole lot of these changes are things we aren’t happy with because we would much prefer things stay just the way they are.
So how should we react?
Grow bitter, complaining about the new-fangled ways? Or should we make like an ostrich, stick our head in the sand and pretend things are the same as they have always been. That’s not what has worked for Aunt Patricia. She has learned to overcome the tendency to become rigid and set in her ways. She has learned to take all the new things that progress brings and use it to improve her quality of life.
