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I’ve come to realise that while I need routine, I also like change in that routine too.

Contradictory, I know, but like all of the important things in my life they always end up conflicting.

This time however, it just works. For instance, I like to have a set time that I go to bed and wake up, usually have the same thing for breakfast every day, and so on. So my day to day routine is ideally as similar as possible to how it’s been for a long time.

With that said though, I just can’t understand how some people manage to do the same thing forever. Working for the government it’s no surprise that there are some “stagnant” people around the place. While I can see the temptation to stay in your comfort zone forever – with no room for failure, I just can’t understand how you can actually do it in practice.

I’m a pretty lazy person, but I just need the challenge. I need the change to mix it all up and force myself to try new things.

While certain situations can be a challenge at the time, most people will find that after making it through that challenge, they are so much more confident and happy, because of what they have achieved. Change is the ideal way to kick start your life again.

Throughout my career I have had a new job about once every year and a half to two years. Up until my current job I have had no scope to “move up the ladder” in those workplaces, so I had the option of sitting stagnant in the same job for quite some time, or moving on.

In each situation, I have chosen to move on once I feel that I have mastered the job, and that I have contributed to my team and employer.

Each move challenges me, and forces me to learn new skills and information – something that I would not have learned in my previous employment.

This is why I believe that change is good.

It might be change of job, or something major like moving interstate or overseas, or even just picking up a new hobby. Regardless of what the actual change is, it provides the opportunity to continue to grow as a person, and stay fresh.

Ok, so not the roses as such, but riding to work this morning I saw what I usually do – some very dodgy driving because someone was obviously in a rush.

I’ve always found that riding to work is an excellent way to slow down your life. The time doesn’t just fly by as much as it does when you’re driving a car. You’re actually taking things in around you, seeing the interesting, beautiful and often hilarious things that are happening in the world.

As I mentioned, this morning I saw a very near miss of a car crash. Last week I saw a motorbike try and overtake a truck on the footpath, then almost stack it into a light pole after literally skidding to a halt and letting the truck past. I know what it’s like to be behind the wheel in peak hour – frustrating. Changing lanes to pass the slow driver in front of you, having someone cut you off, and always trying to get through each light before it goes red.

Obviously this extends much further than driving a car. Slowing your life down has many positives. There is just so much going on in this world, it’s really cool to take it all in rather than being involved in it all.

A few months back I was catching up with some friends in the city for a drink after work. I was about an hour early so I just decided to grab a beer and wait for them outside on a chair in the sun. All sorts of things passed me by and it was a really enjoyable experience. Nice looking girls, those pierced goth types, a couple of homeless people all walked past. A truck did a reverse parallel park into the smallest parking space I’d ever seen! Pretty much everything I saw was interesting in some way shape or form. Maybe I should start doing that more often instead of watching TV for entertainment?

I write a lot on here about money and the economic situation of the world, and I’m usually pretty negative about things. Talking to those in my office, where pretty much everyone is under the age of 30, most others have the same attitude. That said, it’s only the opinion of the older generations that we are so negative. I’ll explain…

It’s well known that most Gen Y’s aren’t very loyal in a workplace sense. They are happy to jump ship after a short period of time just for some extra money here or there. Apparently the way we were brought up, we have a short attention span or something. I’m not sure, someone was telling me about it once but I wasn’t really listening… haha!

Does this extend further than just employment though? Local car manufacturer Holden is in a heap of financial trouble at the moment – being down the food chain from General Motors isn’t the best place to be in an economic crisis. Talking to the Baby Boomers, they think it would be a great loss to this country to lose Holden, but talking to the Generation Y’s paints a completely different picture. The general consensus is that Holden have been producing poorly built, inefficient and overpriced cars for too long now. Technology has moved in leaps and bounds for European and Japanese cars, but in Australia we are essentially using the same outdated technology as the yanks. It’s nobody’s fault that Holden is going under but their own, and good riddance.

In this specific example I see a crash and “the world coming down” as a massive positive. The US and Australia manufacturers will be brought to their knees and forced to produce more efficient cars and work with a business model that actually makes money rather than lose it. Lots of other people just see the doom and gloom and not the positives from it. These are usually the older generations.

Now does that make us positive or negative? Loyal or disloyal? Short term I can acknowledge that peoples lives will be “ruined”, but once again I see a positive in that. Without making too much of a generalisation about Holden employees, the meaning in their life is in their car, their TV and their Jim Beam. Now while I like cars, watch too much TV and enjoy the drink, I’d be stoked to live in a world where all three didn’t exist. Others would be literally lost, but before long find some real meaning in their life, and enjoy it for real rather than all the superficial crap that we live for nowadays.

While bankruptcy and losing your car and what not is a big negative in the short term, it offers such a huge positive in the long term.

All of this doom and gloom has enormous positives out of the other side, yet the Baby Boomers struggle to see this. Why so?

My father for one would be sad to see the Aussie icon that is Holden lost to the Global Financial Crisis, but I’m happy for it to sink. House prices crashing, banks falling, economies crumbling, exchange rates not so good. Baby boomers would faint if this stuff wasn’t sugar coated when it all happens. However what is bad for some is great for others, you just need to be able to open your mind and explore the situation, rather than just look at it with your blinkers on. Gen Y’s are able to see the positives in this situation much more easily than the Baby Boomers.

Gen Y’s are loyal, Baby Boomers just can’t see that in order for their country to become strong again they need to cut off the dead wood first.