Changes that are just life imitating art (From Bradford Telegraph and Argus)

Changes that are just life imitating art

10:32am Tuesday 26th May 2009

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I have been attending a course as part of my work on the subject of managing change. It is something I have a great deal of experience in, having spent every day of my 40-plus years engaged in the process.

Every time I look in the mirror, I am faced with a glaring example of its effects upon my life.

Of course, there are different kinds of change that affect us; some are merely part of our natural existence, while others arrive in our world as a result of outside forces.

You would think that after all this time of feeling the effects of change, I would have come to terms with it by now, but I still find myself having to remind myself of how to respond to its often unwelcome advances. I recall a song written by the Sixties folk singer Joni Mitchell. In it she skilfully describes the stages of life, likening them to the revolving of a carousel.

In the early stages of life, the beauty of simple things captivates the child, taking time to catch a ‘dragonfly inside a jar’. A short time later, the ‘cartwheels turn to car wheels’ and the teenager is raring to run full-pelt into all that life has to offer them.

All the time the carousel turns and turns, taking us round familiar scenes until eventually we reach the age where we drag our feet to ‘slow the circle down’.

I first heard this song when I had learned to drive, and so was enjoying the second verse as my life’s reality. To tell you the truth, I never caught dragonflies nor regularly took part in performing cartwheels, but we will allow for poetic licence.

I can remember back in the Seventies listening to her feet-dragging prediction of my life, and even enjoying its well-written form, but it never occurred to me that she might actually be correct.

Here I am, over three decades later, and it is my reality. Not that I actively make daily plans to resist the speed of change, but I do find myself taking extra moments getting up out of chairs or into the car. I even sometimes rewind DVDs in order to relive the moment. My wife thinks it is because I struggle to keep up with the plot these days, but I say she is wrong.

So in honour of being at the ‘foot-dragger’ age, I am proposing a few other methods of slowing the speed of life. Perhaps you would like to join me.

Firstly I intend to spend a bit more time catching dragonflies. Secondly, I will try to do a cartwheel everyday.

If I should fail at either, I will have to spend more time on training courses; a place where time often stands still.

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