Deer In Headlines

By Gery Deer

Change in our lives comes in two speeds, and neither of them bothers to ask our permission. It either creeps along like a stubborn snail crossing a sidewalk, or it arrives so fast we wake up wondering who moved the furniture while we were asleep. Slow change is invisible because it’s gradual. Fast change is invisible because it’s overwhelming. It reminds me of the Latin phrase, “Festina Lente,” which means, “make haste, slowly.” Either way, we rarely recognize those significant moments of change until after they’ve happened.

I think our lives are divided into chapters or acts, like a play. Each one is marked by some moment, some Rubicon we didn’t know we were crossing at the time. That moment signals a new direction, usually unexpected and rarely announced with trumpets or a warning label. There’s no narrator to step forward and tell us this is Act Two. Life just keeps going, and we keep improvising.

Some people believe those moments don’t exist at all, that life is simply a continuous stream of overlapping events pushing us forward with little control. Others, like me, are convinced that fate is a convenient myth. Our lives are driven by choices. We make decisions based on circumstance, opportunity, fear, optimism, and experience. Those decisions quietly determine what comes next.

When real change happens, there is a moment when something nudges our lives in a new direction. The frustrating part is that we only notice it in hindsight. One of mine occurred in October of 1987, while reading the classified ads in my college newspaper. I needed a job. Buried among the listings was a small notice that the paper was hiring staff writers.

Less than an hour later, my writing career began. I was an engineering student with no sense that a decision made from necessity and desperation would shape the rest of my working life. I didn’t feel a shift. There was no lightning bolt. I just filled out an application.

Years followed in engineering and technology, but I kept writing. Newspapers. Technical publications. Industry magazines. Software manuals. The transition from a technical career to a creative one didn’t happen overnight. It was painfully slow, full of doubt, subjectivity, and rejection. Writing is a hard business in which to make a name, and I’m still working on it.

Along the way, I changed direction more than once. Demand shifted. Markets changed. The economy had opinions. Some pivots worked. Others failed spectacularly. I adjusted, recalibrated, and kept moving forward, sometimes confidently, other times reluctantly.

Nearly forty years later, that moment sitting in front of the bookstore with a newspaper folded open on my lap was clearly a dividing line. At the time, it was just another Tuesday.

As we settle into a new year, consider what might need to change in your life. Or what changed in the past year without notice. Professionally. Personally. Emotionally. We like to believe we’ll recognize those moments when they arrive, that we’ll feel enlightened or prepared. We won’t. Change doesn’t work that way, no matter how many self-help books promise otherwise.

So what do we do? We do the best we can with what we know at the time. We pay attention. We stay flexible. We understand that most change happens in tiny, almost imperceptible increments, except when it doesn’t. Perspective is everything. Our reality is defined by how we see ourselves, our surroundings, and the people around us.

If there’s comfort in that, it’s this: you don’t have to have it all figured out. Recognizing change comes later. Coping with it comes from patience, adaptability, and a willingness to pivot when necessary. Life will change, slowly or suddenly. Our job is simply to keep showing up, learning as we go, and trusting that today’s ordinary moment may someday reveal itself as the one that changed everything.

Change asks us to breathe, to pause, and to remember that discomfort often signals growth – however difficult. When things accelerate, ground yourself. When they crawl, stay patient. Talk to others. Write things down. Measure progress over months, not days. Most of all, give yourself time. You are not late. You are living inside the process, not observing it from the end.