It’s been a warm winter in Lake Wobegon…or at least that’s how Garrison Keillor would start one of this winter’s monologues on “A Prairie Home Companion”. It’s been so warm in Minnesota, that we even made this Sunday’s New York Times, with our ice fisherpeople and their trucks crashing through our lakes’ thin ice.
When things aren’t normal, it’s news.
Most of us don’t deal well with things that aren’t normal, things that involve change. As pleased as I am that my parka, boots and snow blower have not had their usual usage this winter, there are many more who bemoan the lack of snow, frigid temps and yes, thin ice. And it’s not just the lack of skiing, or the lack of snow sculpting or the lack of ice fishing that is bothering them – it’s the change that’s bothering them. Things just aren’t right. Heating bills should be higher. People should be wearing thicker sweaters and heavier coats. The kids’ clothes should be icy, not muddy. It should be a normal winter!
What is normal? Remember Gordon Gecko’s “brick” mobile phone in 1987? Today, it’s perfectly normal for a consumer to have a conversation on her credit card sized mobile device while accessing the internet to locate a retailer using the device’s geolocation system. How about those quaint days when wives planned on just the right time to tell their husbands they were “expecting”? Now Target might know she’s pregnant before she springs the news on the hubby. iPad apps for one year olds? Who would have thought that even two years ago?
It’s all change. The new and uncomfortable today often becomes tomorrow’s norm. The key to navigating life and business – yesterday, today and tomorrow – was, is and will be the ability to recognize and avoid thin ice, and enjoy the warm breezes that accompany it.
