“The times they are a’changing”  – Bob Dylan

Famous Friday Quotivations # 4 December 10, 2010.

Today a tattered and worn old piece of paper was sold at Sotheby’s auction house in New York. The buyer was a wealthy hedge fund manager who ponied up $422,500 for the artifact.

In this series I usually quote famous leaders who had written great unforgettable one-liners. But this time I came across something different. That old piece of paper that changed hands today was the original hand-written draft of Bob Dylan’s protest anthem “The Times They Are A-changing”. It rattled in my brain all day.

I was just beginning high school back in October 1963 when Dylan picked up a pencil and scratched out this song on a three-hole punched piece of paper. He couldn’t have known of course the changes that were afoot just a short time later when President John F. Kennedy was shot dead by an assassin’s bullet during a motorcade through Dallas. Many things changed that day.

Here’s the quote:

Come gather ’round people
Wherever you roam
And admit that the waters
Around you have grown
And accept it that soon
You’ll be drenched to the bone
If your time to you is worth savin’
Then you better start swimmin’ or you’ll sink like a stone
For the times they are a-changin’

For Dylan this was a song to protest the war in Vietnam and the issue of civil rights. But for me now, some 47 years later, I see it as a reflection of the perils of not being adaptable to change.

Adaptability is an important human attribute and is a big part of what I cover in my discussion about my work and research as I continue to develop my theory of mindset immunity. Change is something that’s all around us and we’d better be good at handling it because one thing we can rely on is more of it in the future. Whether we’re ready or not.

Many are not.

That’s why I developed this.

Stay tuned.

Meanwhile, for your enjoyment, here’s my favorite cover of that great Bob Dylan song performed by another iconic trio of the 1960’s era Peter, Paul, & Mary.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oU7M4OeSRM[/youtube]

More Power to you