After you've done something the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. And after ten years, throw it away and start all over. ~Alfred Edward Perlman, New York Times, 3 July 1958
That single phrase could very well be my kryptonyte. How many times have you heard that phrase especially in eastern Ky. We as a people are resistant to change. We become complacent for the most part and if what works for the goose most of the time the gander is doing the same thing.
We do it this way because that's the way it's always been done, it works, why should we change?
I am not talking about anything specific per se' but perhaps the general conception of if it ain't broke don't fix it. Well what if it is broke but you don't know it. Maybe because you have accepted a lower level of performance.
Think about it. Let's take a car for example. This said car gets you to and from work every day. Your car accelerates fine, stops fine and does all the normal functions that a car does but only gets 10 miles per gallon. It's got that gas mileage since the day you purchased it new off the lot. You have accepted that fuel consumption level because it has never done better than that so it must be normal. It must be performing at the level it was designed to do. Maybe it is. Or maybe its not. But either way one day you say with unlimited certainty that there is a way to increase this gas mileage. You want to go farther. Regardless of how, you just know there is a better way to do things. So you tinker with it a little and pretty soon you find the combination of tweaks and small improvements that increases this vehicles gas mileage consumption to 35 miles per gallon. But wait - we can't change that - we have always had 10 miles per gallon - it ain't broke - don't you dare fix it.
Now I know that may be just a tad stretching the analogy, but at the same time you never know what benefits that lie just around the corner just by stepping back just an inch and asking why and how. When we as a society become complacent and just accept things the way they are, we can never make progress. Us in eastern Ky have an increased resistant to change. We are a humble people. But we must think outside the box!
This attitude affects our lives more so than you think. Take 2 neighboring counties. Floyd and Pike. If you dial 911 in Pike County - you get not only an ambulance, but in most cases the fire department responds to your residence as well. Since many times the ambulance service is sometimes 20-30 minutes out, this is a life saver. In Pike County - 15 (number exact) of 25 fire departments respond to ems calls to assist EMS crews and to increase response times. This is a system that is rivaled by some big city departments.
In Floyd county - out of about 17 fire departments (number not exact) NONE of them respond to ems calls. The city of Prestonsburg does respond to serious EMS calls. Other than that, no other fire department in the county decides to respond and assist. Response times for EMS in some areas of Floyd County have been documented at exceeding over 1 hour on critically ill patients. Some financially can't - but some simply choose not to because "we have never done it and don't want to do it". In essence - because that's the way we have always done it.
Let's not change for the sake of changing, but to resist change simply because we have never done things a different way prevents us from becoming a more diverse and progressing area.
