The pendulum swing

We are a very excitable lot, us humans.

When we come up with something new we get all gung ho about its potential and impact. Once we’ve established that it is not going to happen quite so fast then we no longer notice the changes happening around us. Is that because we became rather blaze about the whole thing when the emergent first hit us – something like been there done that?

Then we underestimate finally the overall impact the new technology [as an example – mostly it is about that] has on our lives.

Sometimes all this partying goes just too far and when we realize we have been overindulging on the hoopla we figure we were silly and what ever and we pooh pooh the whole thing and thank some force for saving us from the extremes. [we post rationalize it – our smarts did it]….

As a consequence we then overreact – just for balance right – in the other direction… and guess what we’re post rationalizing again. We are so good at explaining all for the best. I guess it hurts less.

This pendulum swing is a good business idea too. I think I know some people who make it a habit to look at what everyone seems to be talking about or what opinion prevails and then take the opposite view and call themselves change gurus. Not bad, knowing what happens with the pendulum.

The pendulum is some kind of a sign of our fear of being left behind.

What on earth do we really learn from all this? We don’t seem to hold on to much learning from the swings, eventually it all comes together, but it is mostly not the initial drivers who make things happen.

What is the medicine then? Perhaps what we need to do is to remember that we can only take in so much at a time, we need time to assimilate and then we need to manage our expectations to suit. If we still overdo it we should remember that what we experienced before is just waiting for the next time the conditions of interest prevail.

So goes the pendulum. If we’re lucky we learn to not let that handle swing quite so far and back again. Curb it at both ends!