“Nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.”
― Mary Wollstonecraft Shelley
We barely notice that our child is growing until they are suddenly teenagers and eye to eye with us, literally and figuratively.
We don’t notice the slow decay of our skills or bodies until suddenly we can no longer do something we have seemingly always done, and the realization is a shock.
The spouse cheats, not because of an individual encounter with a seducer but because of the years of neglect and slowly deteriorating feelings.
Some changes are sudden and radical, some slow and inevitable that lead to a catastrophic event like the collapse of a castle. Both types are natural and inevitable unless we consistently invest time and energy to counter the entropy and slow erosion of standards and support that keep us upright as individuals and organizations. Small changes are the way of the world, for good or ill. Expend the effort to counter the deterioration and improve the world outside and within before the walls fall and all crumbles into the sea.