Changing Times

I'm preparing to write an important exam in a few weeks that will hopefully complete my accounting program of professional studies. To help prepare, I'm reading the CICA Handbook, the definitive set of accounting guidelines for my nation commonly known as Generally Accepted Accounting Principles.

Here's the kicker: these rules will be phased out within 3 years and replaced with an international set of guidelines known as International Financial Reporting Standards. So I am currently sacrificing valuable time to study a document that will be irrelevant in about 1,000 days. That really isn't too far away.

The accounting profession isn't all that's changing. In fact, when stereotypically staunch, rigid, conservative accountants (like all stereotypes, a grandiose embellishment on a grain of truth) are undergoing massive change, it speaks to the pace of change that the rest of the real world must be experiencing.

Change in the context of progress and improvement is good (change for its own sake is often foolish), but this whole exercise has gotten me thinking about the importance of using time wisely to maximize my effectiveness in a changing world. What will it profit me to become an expert on accounting rules that will be obsolete in three years? Or worse, what will I gain from devouring today's newspaper when maybe 1% of what I read there will have any value at this time next year or even next month?

Time is a precious resource, and if it is to be invested rather than wasted, it will only be on account of deliberate action in the present. To maximize personal development will require foresight, wisdom, and diligence. Anticipate change, determine what is temporal and what holds lasting value, and relentlessly pursue the latter.

I've got a lot to do.