The Paradigm Shift

When I was a young man working for the Federal Government, I worked shift work. Every six months or so, it was time for me to do my part and work from midnight to 7 a.m., the "graveyard shift," (you only had to work 7 hrs. because the work was supposedly more cruel and unusual overnight). I worked cleaning up and playing night watchman at the three buildings that comprised the Border Patrol Academy's administrative offices and classrooms. It was very different from the job I had when I worked the day shift. I had basically no supervision and was honor-bound to do my work and not sleep all the way through the night. I took it seriously. Oddly enough, it proved a powerful impetus for my thought processes about life, work, education and so forth. It gave me time and quiet to think about a lot of things that I might not have taken the time and energy to consider. It forced somewhat of a paradigm shift on my malleable psyche. And it was good for me. In that time, I decided to get a college education, commit to military service in the Marine Corps Reserve and basically devote my life to ideas of higher thought and service. That was a bit of an odd thing for those times and for someone my age in South Texas. It was, in retrospect, a paradigm shift. And that shift was basically forced upon me by the circumstances of my employment. It was a necessary and ultimately good thing.

It seems to me that incidences and circumstances of the past couple of years and 2008-2009 in particular, have hastened paradigm shifts in many areas: money, government, business, social responsibility, education, faith, war, disaster relief and so forth. The vast majority of these changes are good, and some even wonderful and wondrous. They may never have happened or would not have been expedited had it not been for the financial, political, climatic, economic, military and spiritual challenges and debacles we have experienced and continue to respond to. From the dark of night in the formative years of my youth to these uncertain and unsettling times from the perch of my mid-years, the changes at play are essential. Going forward, things will be different sure; likely to be better, more focused, more efficient, more appropriate, more caring and more to the point. It is likely to mean better government, better business and improved focus on the things that matter most to us as humans. Comparisons notwithstanding, I refuse to think of it as having been time spent on the "graveyard shift."