I was recently thinking about my first visit back to Buenos Aires a number of years ago. Nine years had passed from the day I boarded the plane to come to America. so I wanted to go back to visit. I went to Buenos Aires, yes, but I never really went back. In the nine years I had been in America, friends and family moved on; children grew up, some friends died, old girlfriends got married (and divorced). If I wanted to be honest, I had to recognize that I myself had changed after an experience of nine years living in another country and even speaking another language on a daily basis. The country and the people I left behind were gone, and new people with more experiences came into existence. It is the nature of life to change and to learn from what we live through.

Why am I bringing this up? The United States is also changing in more ways than we realize. Our society changes every day with every experience and with every situation. The country that was in 2008 will never come back, but the country we are in will also fade, and what is to come will be different as well. In life the only unchanging truth is change itself. Those who try to turn the clock back are bound to fail, and those who cling to the moment as if it were eternal, are bound to be left behind.

The key for people and for organizations to thrive and flourish is to recognize that while we build our lives and our organizations on past experiences, we need to look at the future with no preconceptions. What worked yesterday may not work tomorrow. When we don't change with the times we loose the capacity to adapt and to be effective in an ever changing environment. We cannot stop the change, so we need to ride the wave...

But home is not a photograph of a moment in time, but an accumulation of memories, relationships and hopes, all coming together in the tapestry we call life. Home is within ourselves, and it is always changing. So we can go home, or we can go back - but we cannot go "back home"... Just my two cents...:)