"You could always go on changing things
but there comes a time
when you have to decide to stop."
-- Peter Wright
Since our Internet business, Upward Trend, is a business to business entity, in the last six years I've had the opportunity to know a little bit about a lot of businesses. When a client leaves us, it is often because they have had a major change, and many of those were decisions to quit the business, or the business was sold to someone else. So now, I've seen a good number that were viable and is no longer. I am sad to lose a client, but full of joy of their new possibilities because as much as I try to hang on to things on the surface, I know deeply that change is life-giving--it is creation!
Just in the last two months, there have been three clients who quit or sold their business. That's an amazing number in that short time span, but it's only amazing because as a kid, I seemed to think that businesses lasted a long, long time. There was Sears, Macy's, McDonald's, Ford, General Motors, J.C. Penney, and many more that appeared that they would last forever to me. Even these big names have changed dramatically. I mean, we would have laughed if someone said that GM was going to go bankrupt, and then it came to pass. Now they still sell Chevrolet and other vehicles, but they have changed to the core.
Why is it that we think things are supposed to last a long time, or a certain period of time, or forever? Maybe we get used to seeing the name, and as we change, that name is still there. All of the businesses I just mentioned were here when I was six years old and now that I'm 64, they are still here. But are they really? They are more than just name only; however, they are just similar. Yet, the names last because others picked up the banner to carry on the general idea after their predecessors have moved on, so companies can survive many lifetimes. Ford was there during the life of my great-grandparents, and is yet today, and so on.
We also may think of change as quitting. Of course, quitting is change. But, quitting has typically been something that provokes a negative thought. In reality, it is often just a path that achieves change. As I look back, I too have quit businesses, and for a variety of reasons, yet as I look at that and see the larger picture of where change has brought me, I see it all so positively today. Each of these changes has been a tool that has carved the sculpture of what and who I am now.
There comes a time to stop and begin again. As I see these changes in my own life and that of many others, I have the urge to celebrate.
Embracing Change? Absolutely!
Spread Some Joy Today--by following your own heart--your own joy.
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