Old Dog, New Tricks

You’ve heard the old saying, “You can’t teach an old dog new tricks.” What if you’re the old dog? As slip into the back end of my 50s, I’ll admit it. Despite my reasonably cheery outlook on life and youthful impulses, I sometimes feel like that old dog.

We live in a world moving faster, so far as we know, than any other period of human history. Whereas 20 years used to constitute old, today 20 hours often does. Technology is changing by the moment. We drink information through a firehose without the ability to critically analyze it. In short, there’s always a new trick for us old dogs.

How do we cope?

We must commit ourselves to becoming one with the change. We must commit ourselves to learning new lessons, drawing new conclusions, and releasing cherished paradigms that simply don’t work anymore. All things we old dogs are loathe to do.

I’m not suggesting you relinquish timeless principles. In fact, we need to add a few more of those back into the mix. There’s been some throwing the baby out with the bathwater there.

I am suggesting that you need to adjust to doing old things in new ways. You need to be willing test new ideas, seek new approaches, and always be growing and getting better.

It would nice, for us old dogs, to think that the world is going to slow down and go back to how it used to be when we were young, comfortable, and uniquely confident. The truth is, barring an asteroid, this is the new reality, old dog. If you want to stay in the game, you’ve got to be willing to learn new tricks.

Just in case no one else has reminded you today, you ARE amazing!

Ray

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