I sit next to a stack of books I should be reading, yet the echo of words spoken somewhere last week are all I hear: We have to evolve if we want to succeed. It’s a deep thought if you ask me, especially next to the likes of my unopened books like “To the Finland Station,” “Troubled,” “After 1177 B.C.,” and of course the book I’ve been reading for the last uh-hem, several months now called “Goodbye, Eastern Europe.” Evolve to succeed, huh?
Speaking of evolution, I tried using a Kindle once. If you don’t know what that is, it truly isn’t a loss. It’s an electronic book that’s more like a tablet but just as cumbersome as an Etch A Sketch.
I even downloaded several classics onto it and tried reading them. I was pleasantly surprised at the quality of the screen. You could even read under the glaring sun on bright beachy days. But alas, electronic reading wasn’t for me and quickly became a thing of my past; an oddity I couldn’t quite understand and a taste I couldn’t acquire. Give me a hard cover, or a rough-paged book any day — one you have to lick your fingers in order to grasp; perfect for turning and gaining the satisfaction of finishing another page, even if you have to place it on your chest for a minute to take a nap and digest the significance of a good plot twist.
Though I may have the characteristics of an aged and moribund dinosaur, I’ll have you know I got today’s topic off something more relevant, au courant and modern — the moving picture box otherwise known as television.
I was watching a show, the storyline and even the program itself now a distant memory. But what I do remember, were the words: We have to evolve if we want to succeed. They were spoken by an old guy who coaches a high school football team. He stumbles over ways to inspire and rile up the troops because the boomer words and expressions he once relied on to evoke anger, rage and therefore touchdowns, no longer work in this day and age. He’s out of touch. Worse, he’s offensive; incompatible with today’s culture of inclusion and sensitivity.
Expressions like mamby pamby illicit triggers and anxiety, requiring entry to a safe space. But here is where the boomer finally gets it. It’s not the words he uses that make him a dinosaur, it’s thinking that using outdated tools from his past to fix current-day problems will somehow work.
In order to succeed, we must evolve. Just because we think the new generation is soft and depends too much on participation trophies, doesn’t mean we can’t find new ways to communicate, change and adapt. Stagnation is death. The human species is meant to adapt. Many intelligent species learn from their mistakes. As an evolved species, we should learn from the mistakes of others.
We can’t let our stubbornness or comfort with the past get in the way of our future success. Just because it worked for us and our fathers and our fathers before them, doesn’t mean we have to use the same methods.
Why do we hold on so tightly to the thought that what was best for us ought to be enough for this generation? I’ll tell you why. Because we’re afraid. We’re afraid of letting go of our past. We’re afraid of being wrong. And my personal favorite: We’re afraid of the unknown. Evolution isn’t about changing toward the known — otherwise we wouldn’t need to change. It is about transcending, crossing the line, moving beyond the threshold. The most radical changes in history came from our ability to mold the past into the unknown of our future — a leap into the divine.
Sometimes evolution happens by chance. A mistake. A spark. But sometimes, if the gods are on your side, we can create the re-evolution we seek. Change! Adapt! Your success depends on it.
Javier Sanchez is one of 10 investors in El Rito Media LLC.