Chapter 10 - Fire and Leaves

It’s late 2003, early 2004. The doors to the region of Kanto have opened and you step into the running shoes of a kid in Pallet Town. Your neighbor, Professor Oak, had given you a Pokémon of your own a while ago, and after your last battle, your Pokémon had evolved into a new form. Bulbasaur had become Venusaur, Charmander changed into Charizard and, my personal favourite, Squirtle had evolved into Blastoise. As a kid these changes were so cool and even as what constitutes an adult these days I still go back to those games time and time again.

Now, the word Evolution has wider implications in the Pastel world. In 2003, the release of Pastel Evolution changed the playing field forever. The available products of the time, like Pastel Partner for example, were great accounting solutions. But Pastel Evolution was a business solution, providing a wider range of capabilities to manage your entire company, not just the money side of things. But this change brought new challenges as well. The staff at Preferred Solutions had to learn on the fly, training themselves to become more and more proficient at implementing this amazing new product. Sally (you should know her by now, if you were paying any sort of attention) was the front-runner in this endeavour, fording the frozen waters ahead for the rest of Preferred Solutions to follow her into this new world of business management software.

The thing is, change is a staple of life. Heraclitus of Ephesus, the ancient Greek philosopher once said: “There is nothing permanent except change.” (Not my favourite philosophy quote by far. The whole business with Plato defining man as “featherless bipeds” and Diogenes running into Plato’s Academy with a plucked chicken, shouting: “Behold! I’ve brought you a man!” That’s how you throw shade.) But the true adventure every person, regardless of who they are, has to embark on is to adapt to the changes as they come. We as humans are resilient enough to survive the harshest changes life could ever throw at us. All we need to do is endure and believe that we can survive and overcome. Once we do that there is only one way to go. Up!