Have you ever tried to sweep water uphill? The moment you let up, you lose control. Court depositions, technology challenges, travel, meetings, surgeries, and moving all remind me that we live in a very fluid situation. It seems that everything in today's busy world has a temporary quality about it. Predictability is passe. Vague is vogue.

We can literally burn out trying to bring order and constancy to our lives. We must learn to use instability and change. Our world demands a high level of adaptability. Old patterns will bring us nothing but problems.

In a little book written by Price Prichett and Ron Pound titled The Stress of Organizational Change, a chapter deals with living and working effectively in this new day and age.

Statisticians report that we reached a human population of 1 billion in the early 1860s. In 75 years, the head count doubled. By 1975, it had doubled again, to 4 billion. Today we are near 6 billion, and by 2040, the world population will reach 10 billion. People in ever-increasing numbers are reshaping our world.

It is said that 80 percent of the world's technological changes have taken place in the last 100 years. Technology feeds on itself. The amount of information available in the world is doubling every five years.

The bottom line is that we must give up; we must acknowledge and receive change. Likewise, we must toughen up and gain a higher level of tolerance for change. Finally, we all must wise up. Practice instant alignment.

As we live and plan our work in today's fluid world, we must avoid wasting emotional energy by desperately holding onto old habits. Embrace the good that comes with change, and remember the words of Werner Erhard: “Ride the horse in the direction that it's going.”