Yes: there’s a price to pay if you refuse to accept and adjust to change. What am I talking about? Well, this: change is inevitable. Period. It’s futile to try to prevent it or pretend it’s not happening. So if you’re in pursuit of success and achievement in any field or endeavour, and over time you refuse to accept change and adjust to new circumstances, you’ll very likely find yourself paying the price: failure.

Let me give you a today example that clearly illustrates what I’m talking about.

Consider the segment of our First Nations people who’ve refused to accept the changes that have come upon all nations and peoples over the last several hundred years. Many of our First Nations people are struggling to sustain or revive a past that—for better or for worse—is gone forever. Since today’s world will no longer support their former pre-technological lifestyle of living on the land, hunting, fishing, and trapping, the First Nations’ effort to hang on to that lifestyle is worse than useless, because it only serves to marginalize them further. The result is only maladjustment that leads to all kinds of problems. The only way they can manage to limp along in their state of denial without facing total demise is by continuing to receive money from the government.

(CAVEAT: I don’t mean to ignore the role played by the oppression and violence perpetrated against the First Nations by earlier generations of Europeans—for which the current system of reserves and handouts is a sort of penance. But if it is a penance, it’s also a backhanded way of inviting the First Nations to remain stuck in their time warp. It is easier for them to accept “help” that erodes their dignity and initiative, discourages achievement, and prevents responsible leadership from developing among them, than to take the first difficult steps to embrace change and deal with it. Unable to pursue their traditional lifestyle, and unprepared to succeed in the one that has superseded it, their communities suffer a lack of purpose and focus leading to the anguish of family breakup, addiction, suicide, prostitution, and violent crime.)

But if their situation is complicated, there are nevertheless some who have grabbed the bull by the horns, made a supreme effort of imagination, figured out how to adapt to a new reality, and taken action. And they have succeeded.

Meanwhile, your situation is not so complicated. Quite simply: there’s a price to pay if you refuse to accept and adjust to change, and the price only gets higher the longer you try to hold out. You may not like the change you face; you may even hate it. But you’d better accept it and learn to adapt, because like it or not, change will come and you can no more hold it back than you can hold back a tsunami. Those who refuse to accept and adjust to change will find themselves left behind, frustrated, likely resentful, and facing a dismal future filled with failure, disappointment, and disaster. To live a successful life of achievement and happiness in the workplace, and in every other area of life, you have to accept change and adjust accordingly.

To enjoy your work and accept your lot in life—this is indeed a gift from God.   —Ecclesiastes 5:19