Keeping up with the times

Posted on by WritingfromtheheartwithBrian

My wife and I were counting pennies. We were a young married couple with our first child and a baby on the way. On one of our few date nights out, instead of enjoying some quality couples time, we were instead patrolling the aisles at Best Buy looking over the latest and greatest in VHS cassette players.

The VHS players must have been big business, because the aisle was overflowing with shoppers and a young salesman was highlighting some of the features on each of the biggest selling players. At one point, I remember putting my hands to my face and shaking my head. I was annoyed about the entire process, but I also loved that my daughter enjoyed the movies and would come up to me after watching The Little Mermaid or Aladdin with her own story of how she thought the movie should’ve ended or stories of far away, fantasy lands.

Egg on my face

My wife and I stepped away and chatted. We went back and forth on which player to get. We had budgeted for the purchase and wanted to make it a good one. If we were wrong, we would have to live with our decision for a long period of time. With that in my head, I told my wife that the player and the two Disney movies that we had in our hands were “an investment.” I suggested that we go with the one that cost a little more since it seemed to be more quality focused and would last. For good measure, I think I even pointed out how our TV and the new player would allow us to watch TV and play a cassette player in picture in picture mode.

Looking back now, all I can do now is simply shake my head. Okay, it was probably one of the silliest comments I’ve ever made in my life. An investment? Something we’ll have for years? Where’s that VHS player now you may ask? Which room do you think I have it? Oh, it’s long gone. And the Picture in Picture? I’d like to write that I spent hours and hours enjoying that little feature, but I never did master it.

Change happens one day at a time

VHS cassette players were first invented in the early 70s and lasted for a time, until DVDs came along and were sold to consumers in the late 90s and now my wife and I pretty much stream everything we watch. I’m sure something else will come along and change streaming too.

We’re writing about change this month on the Heart of the Matter. Change happens nowadays at incredible rates of speed, here today, gone tomorrow. Technology change seems to take place at breakneck speed. I just get used to an app or a website and I look up to see that it’s changing again — sometimes for the better, sometimes not. We all have our experiences with this. Some like the changes we see regularly on WordPress, some would rather see them launch and never change the experience again.

Family, friends, and acquaintances regularly get upset by the changes around them. I admit to having my own issues, but I deal a lot with change in my job and home life and I’ve found that the way you approach change determines a long way how you’re going to deal with the evolution.

You have your options: Fight it tooth and nail and the change will often be painful. I think of the Blockbuster Videos of the jworld who put their head in the sand and failed to keep up with customers’ changing needs and ultimately suffered because of it.

Turning the tide one drop at a time

When I’m faced with my own changes, I prefer to learn everything I can about the coming changes, find ways to incorporate them into my life, work together with others and make sure I keep a positive attitude. It sounds so simple and trite, like filler words, but it’s all so important.

I try to remember too that we face life’s changes the best we can. In the example of the VHS player, my wife and I made the best decision we could at the time. How were we to know that the VHS tape would one day give over to newer technologies. So, our choice of a player didn’t last forever. It was still the right decision. It all comes back to attitude.

How do you face change? Kicking and screaming or looking for ways to implement it into your life? What helps you adapt and evolve to the change?

. . . . . 

Please join in on the discussion on the HoTM site. In addition, please visit my personal blog at www.writingfromtheheartwithbrian.com to read my companion piece. In addition, you can follow me on Instagram at @writingfromtheheartwithbrian.

All the best, Brian.

Images by Pexels.

26 thoughts on “Keeping up with the times”

  1. What I find most interesting about the VHS analogy is, at the time, it feel like such an important decision but, years later, just about any player would have done the job. So many decisions in life are like that, where we don’t necessarily know the long-term impact of a change or decision. We make the best decision we can in the moment based on the data available, but I think your point about attitude is the key. We will surely make mistakes along the way or assign too much (or too little) importance to a decision, but the best things to do it pat ourselves on the back for the effort and keep moving forward.

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  2. Love this post! Every day I find myself doing battle with one technology challenge or another…and the memories of those early days of clunky VHS players and cell phones that were like bricks make me chuckle. For all my fussing, there’s so much good in some of the advancements (some challenges, too) but the humor about it all — which you bring to us so well – is the best. Throughout the day today I’m gonna carry the mental image of my dad bringing home the first ‘family cam’ video camera — maybe in 1978 – that he won at a convention. I think it must’ve weighted 30 pounds but he hauled that puppy around proudly. Weight-lifting! 😂

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  3. Your VHS story brought back memories. My brother (my only sibling) sent my husband and me a VHS player for a wedding present. You can imagine how we felt we struck gold! I was working on a story about the Santiago Coup of 1973 in 2022 and one of my sources told me to watch a Sissy Spacek movie “Missing” about the coup. It wasn’t streaming, but I could buy the CD. Next problem: no CD player. I ordered one from Amazon for under $30. It’s the size of my hand. I haven’t used it since, but I do have CDs that I didn’t get rid of — the Seinfeld, Mary Tyler Moore and Lucy collections, plus Godfather movies. Maybe I should watch them?

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  4. For me, the most pleasing change in regards to technological advances over the years is the digital camera. No more expensive film, no more expensive darkroom supplies, and no more limiting the number of pictures taken. Love them!

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    1. I was in a meeting today …. We all had laptops or tablets open. All fine. I noticed though, I was the only one writing out notes. I felt like a dinosaur until I remembered that I would take my notes and memory of our meetings over anyone else on my team. Ha ha, change is about attitude, I don’t think it’s about change just for the sake of change.

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  7. Pingback: Back to vinyl – Writing from the Heart with Brian

  9. Well that was a throwback. I remember that one friend who had a VHS player (or maybe it was Beta…do you remember that?) before anyone else. We used to go to his house to watch movies. When I got my first VHS player, it was a huge deal.

    Technological change doesn’t bother me to be honest. I’ve learned it’s inevitable so I just kind of roll with it. Other forms of change are more difficult.

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  10. Such a relatable post. I totally feel the weight of the decision. I like your point about having a good attitude about what’s to come. But you also highlight something that I have trouble with – letting the old “investments” go. I stream most everything – but still have a DVD player. You’ve got me thinking, Brian! Thank you!

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    1. The thing that actually helped with old investments was being a parent. I would fret about decisions that I had made or changes that had happened … it took being a parent to realize I wasn’t going to make the perfect decision, I wasn’t always going to make the right choice. It’s just impossible, but I could try to make the best decision I could in that particular moment. Life’s too short. It’s scary but trust yourself and move on. Yea, I can’t remember the last dvd I watched. Kind of sad. Ha ha.

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  11. It seems that young people adapt to changes better than some of us, ahem, more experienced types. I should learn to adapt quicker, but it seems like I learn how to use something about the time it becomes obsolete.

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  12. Change is hard but necessary in life and technology is a great example of it. I still remember when DVDs came along and felt so revolutionary. And then streaming came along and made them obsolete.

    I can’t at the moment imagine what will come along to make streaming obsolete but it will come and it will be interesting to see what that is.

    May we all continue to develop the skills and support to manage through change.

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  13. This is a tough one. I embraced changes, and still do. The technology change is a hard one. I’m right brain, not left brain. I can do it, but it takes a few times to ‘stick’. Maybe that’s not too bad for a 73 year old. 🙂

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