The Process of Change

                         The Importance of Attitude


       About 150 years ago the colonization of North America began in earnest.
     During the next ten decades a wave of immigration, its scope unknown in
     human history, swept across America. In the main the immigrants were
     ordinary people, generally unskilled, having little formal education, and
     basically unprepared for the arduous life they had chosen in the New
     World, a world that had none of the few comforts of European town life.

       The new settlers had one tremendous advantage. They had the right
     attitude. They were open to change, wanted a new life, and generally
     relished adventure. With that outlook, people learned new skills and
     achieved extraordinary accomplishments. To some degree that still happens
     with recent immigrants.

       As we prepare to enter the third millennium, another monumental task
     faces us. We must cast off the teachings of the past, just as our
     forebears cast off, perhaps more willingly, what they had been taught in
     their homeland. We too, perhaps unknowingly, are about to migrate into
     another world. It will be even less familiar than the strange land viewed
     by the pilgrims when they landed at Plymouth Rock.

       New information is being filtered and refined into new knowledge at the
     rate of 100 percent every eighteen months. Virtually everything we now
     know will be obsolete in a year and a half. With a clean slate, it is
     easier to learn the new. In fact, it is far easier to learn the new than
     be taught the past.

       When I joined the Royal Canadian Air Force in 1940, wartime demands on
     aircraft mechanics and flight engineers were overwhelming. First of all,
     the few instructors available were still learning about the new airplanes
     and engines they had been introduced to only a few weeks previously. We
     all learned together. There is nothing to teach when all is new. Everyone
     is forced to become a learner. Within months thousands of young airmen
     were able to take apart and put back together a sophisticated airplane
     they hadn't even known about ninety days earlier. We had the right
     attitude. Learning was an adventure. Amazingly, the planes continued to
     fly and function, with very few embarrassing incidents. What we learned
     in months was later stretched to a lengthy course with a high-flying
     title that is methodically taught and goes on for years.

       As we enter the third millennium, we will encounter the unfamiliar
     landscapes of virtual reality. We will learn, not be taught, how to
     create anything our imagination dictates and how to direct voice and
     sound to near and distant locations through what might be termed
     electronic ventriloquism. Biotechnology will allow (this has already
     started) the creation of living chimera, organisms that combine parts
     from two, several, or many organisms in one living creature. These
     combinations will not stop at bacteria, plants, or animals.

       Startling developments, inventions, and innovations in fields never
     previously contemplated will change the way we think, work, play, and
     love -- much like the forests, fields, mountains and streams of the New
     World changed the thinking, working, and playing of those immigrants from
     urban Europe.

       The process is much the same. Only the attitude is different. We either
     change to meet the demands of new times or we vanish to be replaced by
     others more open to adventure. As this bulldozer of change rolls over our
     planet we have a choice: to become part of the bulldozer or part of the
     road.