THE MORE THINGS CHANGE

At times of change you realize that, as the old saying goes, change is truly the only constant. Our lives are full of change. And it's scary.

There's another saying that a friend once used, to console me when change was paralyzing me: "All change is evil."

It isn't, of course. But if human language is unique in having a future tense, humans may also be unique in letting the future make us tense. We know there's something ahead, but we cannot be sure what it will be.

So how to relax, in the face of such uncertainty? We are probably weakest at times of transition. It may be unplanned and unwelcome -- a serious accident, the loss of a job, or the loss of a loved one. It may be hoped-for and welcome -- graduation, an unexpected new relationship, a career opportunity, or the birth of a child.

In some cases, it will be complex and mixed, like the challenge I face right now. How do I withdraw from the work I've always done -- lose that paycheck, as well as the relationships and self-definition that my work provided -- and still move ahead, doing work that rewards me with enough income to get by and also makes me feel that I'm doing work that matters?

This is a challenge that faces us baby boomers as we try to organize a 'retirement' strategy, or out-of-work employees who haven't reached 'retirement' age. If we are weakest at a time of unplanned loss, how do we reconnect with the strengths we have when the tides are full? This is the question I need to answer.

I take encouragement from my Page-A-Day(R) calendar from Workman Publishing, which e-mails me "stiff-upper-lip" messages from its Keep Calm and Carry On edition:

"Nothing happens to any man that he is not formed by nature to bear." -MARCUS AURELIUS, Roman emperor

Keep Calm and Carry On, you may remember, was a famous poster published in London during the years of the Blitz, and the daily messages I receive in my inbox remind me that things, of course, could be worse.