Times change and we change with them.
“We cannot wait for great visions from great people, for they are in short supply. It is up to us to light our own small fires in the darkness.”
Charles Handy, The Age of Paradox 1994
In his long career, Charles Handy explored the impact work has on people’s lives and their need to find meaning in what they do for a living and how organisations should help them to lead better lives.
Things Will Be Different
In 2019 at the age of 87, he wrote the purely philosophical book 21 Letters on Life and its Challenges. The first of these letters is entitled Things Will Be Different, a four word phrase that sums up much of his work.
He makes the point that knowing things will change and knowing exactly how, are two very different things. He also goes on to say that uncertainty shouldn’t prevent us from knowing that we can and will adapt.
“Change is always there. Exciting, if you are up for it, but challenging. The Romans knew that. ‘Tempora mutantur, nos et mutamur in illis,’ they said: ‘The times change and we change with them.”
Charles Handy, 21 Letters 2019
It’s not surprising that Handy turns to philosophy to describe how we deal with change because ultimately, it’s all about people. Or should be.
None of this is new. The philosopher Bertrand Russell also had a few things to say about the problem of being certain in uncertain times.
“When disaster is impending, no excuse for sitting still can be valid. The intelligent will have to shed their scepticism, or share responsibility for the evils which all deplore. And they will have to abandon academic grumblings and peevish pedantries, for nothing that they may say will be of any use unless they learn to speak a language that the democracy can appreciate.”
Bertrand Russell, On Modern Uncertainty 1932
