RIDING THE WAVE

How to adapt – and flow through life

- PRAKASH AMRITRAJ

Bruce Lee famously said, “Be like water.” The one constant in life is change. Back in the day, every time we needed something – from groceries to books – we bought it from a physical store. Today, the founder of Amazon, Jeff Bezos, is on his way to becoming a trillionaire because e-commerce has taken over the planet.

Hundred metre-records once set by Carl Lewis and Ben Johnson have been obliterated by Usain Bolt.

Once, the switch from LPs to cassettes and then to CDs was considered a big disruption. Today, you can fit an almost unlimited amount of music into a tiny smartwatch.

The writing is on the wall: If you don’t adapt to changing times, you will get left behind.

I know it can be overwhelming. We settle into something that works for us, or something we like, and then that may get taken away from us. Change is uncomfortable. I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a creature of habit. But we must find a way to focus on embracing change as it’s the flow that governs life.

I remember growing up on the serve and volley game in tennis; it’s how the sport had been played for decades. It’s the style I fell in love with. As I turned professional and started playing on the ATP Tour, technology (rackets and strings) and conditions (speed of surfaces and weight of balls) started to change in a way that favoured baseline tacticians; it’s why you see almost every player today playing from the back of the court.