​“Now, here, you see, it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

The Red Queen to Alice in Lewis Carroll’s Alice Through the Looking Glass

Nothing remains still, everything is in constant motion. In physics a still object is referred to as having ‘zero relative motion’, this is in relation to the observer, but both the object and the observer are moving with the rotation of the earth which is in orbit around the sun which  is moving around the galactic core and the galaxy moving towards it’s inevitable collision with the Andromeda Galaxy. So to remain in exactly the same place in time space we would have to run against the rotation of the earth and the orbit around the sun, galactic core and movement of the galaxy.

We can never rest on our laurels and have to constantly work towards remaining in the same position or in other words maintaining status quo. 

 Sport’s person know that very well and have to constantly work to maintain there ranking or position in a team. A company like Apple constantly has to innovate and invent just to maintain its place as a market leader. Nokia which until few years ago was a market leader no longer exists. Research in motion ‘RIM’ the makers of Blackberry are facing a similar fate. Even Apple was in the doldrums in the 90s until Steve Jobs was reinstated and steered it back. In our own fields we are constantly working to remain relevant. As a Doctor I need to keep abreast with new developments or become the innovator of one . This holds true in all professions. We have to work to maintain our physical possession against the ravages of time. It can be our homes or cars or our own physical self which we subject to gruelling exercises and Plastic procedures in hopes that we may negate the effect of time. Juan Ponce de Leon a Spanish Conquistador was believed to be searching for the ‘fountain of youth’, the waters of which would negate all the effects of time. Needless to add, he never found one otherwise our lives would be so simple, just drink and bathe regularly in the waters of the fountain of youth and voila you will appear the same as you did as when you were in your twenties. The question which begs to be asked is, how do you ensure that you will be back to your twenties? It could theoretically make you a neonate or worse back to the fetal stage!

So we are constantly running just to maintain status quo, if we want to rise beyond status quo we need to run twice as fast! However there is the Law of Diminishing returns which “When one input in a production unit is increased while the others remains the same results in a decrease in the output. An example for this is on an assembly line if you increase the number of people without increasing the number of pieces to be assembled you get a decreased production as now these people will get in each others way while waiting for a piece to assemble. All those exercising in a gym regularly realise that soon they reach a plateau where the amount of exercise maintains there weight and fitness at the same level. In order for more gains it would not be a simple case of increased exercise but also diet and variations in the type of exercise.

Don’t we all dream of just vegetating and doing nothing! Alas that is impossible! We can never be still.