How are we coping with changes around us?

Today we are immersed in major problems that are slowly crippling us. We feel helpless as though caught in a whirlpool that is slowly sucking us down. All our feeble efforts seem useless. In addition we are foolishly fighting among ourselves, which only exacerbates the situation. What can we do to change this? I used the word “change.” Let’s examine that word carefully.

In reviewing this scenario, I feel that the main reason we are unable to overcome these problems is that we are failing to understand and adjust to the reality of “change” in our surroundings. We insist that yesterday is still today and tomorrow.

It has been said that “change is the only reality we have.” Everything we possess, everything we do, everything in the universe “changes.” We age, friends age—nothing is static, not even death.

The fact is, “change” is natural. We must not fight it! We must learn to bend with it. We must understand it! We must accept it! And we must include it in our daily lives making allowances for it as part of all we do. To bend with the ravages of “change,” we must strive to “change” our thinking.

To “change” implies making either an essential difference often amounting to a loss of previous identity or a substitution of one thing for another. Someone once said: “To live is to change, and to be perfect is to have changed often.” “Change” has no beginning and no ending. “Change” involves self-examination that includes our attitude toward self, work, people, and the future. We must examine everything around us.

The most important characteristic of our present society may well be the incredible speed with which it changes. For example, I have seen radio go to television. I experienced the old-style telephone to its present state of the art. I flew in propeller-driven airplanes from California to Japan, which took over 20 hours to the now high-speed jet aircraft. Computers were invented and developed in my youth.

Scientific, technological, cultural, and social innovations are taking place at such a breathtaking pace that no one can really keep up with them. On and on I have witnessed as you have the marvelous things of “change.” But how well are we adapting to these rapid changes?

Just like people exposed to war or disaster may develop a nervous breakdown (“shell-shock”), we being exposed to these rapid “changes” of modern life may develop a state of helplessness and inadequacy. Research has shown individuals with high life changes are significantly more likely to fall ill. More surprisingly, it appears that happiness or illness correlates with all changes. For example, positive change (such as marriage or promotion) as well as negative change (such as divorce or job loss) are very common.

The instinctive reaction of an animal to stressful situations falls into three categories: fight, flight, or fright! This is also exhibited in humans. We feel so helpless that we lash out. How many of us feel anger and aggression in our daily lives? Isn’t this a form of fighting?

How many of us are running away from the CNMI? Isn’t this a form of flight? This action corresponds to fear and anxiety. Fright is like the reaction of an animal that plays dead in the face of uncontrollable danger. The corresponding human emotions seem to be numbing apathy, despair, and depression, which are all characterized by helplessness. Aggression is a short-term reaction, which cannot be sustained very long. Anxiety and fear, however, can be constantly present. Apathy and depression are more likely to be the outcome of a long process of failed attempts to control the stressful situation.

Let’s apply some of these psychological thoughts to our present state of our lives. How many of us do not feel anxiety, depression, and fear about the rapidly crumbling pension fund—the one that was to give us security after a lifetime of work? How many government workers do not feel anxiety, depression, and fear about the austerity work program of four days per week? How many of us do not feel anxiety, depression, and fear about the lack of opportunities to improve our beloved islands?

As a result of this overbearing and continuing anxiety, depression, and fear, aren’t we filled with a feeling of helpfulness and abandonment? As a result we will cling to any person who promises us a cookie even though the price is very high. But it need not be like that. We can fight back!

To overcome the anxiety, depression, and fear we feel, we must take control of them. Fear comes when we move from the familiar to the unfamiliar. Let us examine the changes that surround us with an open mind. Let us stop wishing for the “good old days.” Let us look around and see what is happening beyond our islands and see how others are changing or adapting.

We must come to understand the unknown. Extra efforts are required. Our leaders must become attuned to the changes surrounding us. The world has experienced and is daily experiencing revolutionary changes in governments in various countries. Through modern media, news is instantly transmitted. In an instant everyone knows and sees what is happening in any part of the world. All of these affect us.

The tourists coming to Saipan are not the same type that came here say 20 years ago. I know because I serviced them. Today’s tourists demand different attractions and pleasures, but we keep offering the same menu and wonder why the numbers are falling. The Chinese are a new and different type of tourists as are the Korean. Have we learned how to serve them?

Today’s potential investors are not the same minded as the earlier ones. They are more sophisticated, having seen what has happened to their predecessors. Yet we fail to realize this. We continue to believe that cheap non-local labor will be with us forever even though we have been forewarned. “Changes” are here and we are failing to adapt to them.

Accept the fact that the CNMI has taken a place among the nations of the world, and that the eyes of the world are upon us. Our youth must be given the opportunity to assume responsibility. Let us curb nepotism and hire more on ability. Stop thinking that simple solutions will cure our ills. We must adapt to the changes. We must learn who we are dealing with today.

We cannot continue to operate and make decisions as we have been making over the past years. Our future is not embedded in the past. The past is for reviewing where we have come from, not to continue it. Let us firmly understand, the CNMI is not a cute little group of Micronesian islands but a player in the world arena and as such we much act like a player.

The Japanese poet Matsuo Basho advised: “Do not seek to follow in the footsteps of the men of old; seek what they sought!” And as the day surely follows the night, I firmly believe good fortune will follow when we heed these wise words.

My fellow citizens, I am not offering any simple panacea to our problems, but I hope to encourage us to think positive. Lack of money is not our major problem. Our major problem is our lack of will and determination to accept change and make the necessary changes so that we can solve our problems. Let’s work and study together to solve and overcome them. God bless our beloved CNMI.

In parting remember we are not fully dressed until we wear a smile! And the shortest distance between two people is a smile! So smile and be happy. Have a great week!