Wonthaggi Revisited.

While on our Philip Island holiday, we returned to the mainland for a day trip and visited nearby Wonthaggi. Another of the places we have visited periodically over the past 50 odd years.

It was an interesting experience to just first drive around it and later to walk through the old centre. It was an interesting contrast as it was new around the edges with a big Supermarket, Mc Donald’s, KFC etc added since my childhood. However, at first appearance the old centre had changed very little with most of the old buildings still there and little redevelopment in the main CBD.

However on closer inspection it was observed that while many of the old buildings remained, not many of the old business were the same although some were. In its heyday, Wonthaggi was the centre of the coal mining Industry there, and when that closed down; it became more of a business centre for the surrounding Farmland and Dairy Industry.

Nowadays however it is more a Touristy town, with a lot of smaller businesses catering for them. So these days Wonthaggi has changed yet again from what it was to what is currently needed. Once a Coal mining centre, then a farming centre, and now a tourist centre and Later? Who knows!!

What about Us? Are we the same as we used to be or have we too changed?

Around the edges only? Or at our centre too? Wonthaggi has changed to suit its current environment. It hasn’t changed just for the sake of change, but for the sake of successful survival. Nor has it changed everything. Only those things that will enable it to continue on in a successful manner have changed. Those basic things, like some of the original businesses, still remain.

What about our lives and us? Are we exactly the same as we were 10, 20, whatever years ago? Refusing to change yet wondering why “nothing is happening for Me”? Or have we changed a little around the edges but not at the centre? In other words are we surviving, but only just? Is there something or things at your centre that need to be changed? I

What in our lives, what in your life, do you need to change, either completely or to simply modify? Mostly it will not be a radical overnight change, but like with the CBD of Wonthaggi something that not so much happened, but is happening over a number of years and always ongoing, a little here and a little there at the appropriate time.

I will close with these four questions for your reflection:

1. What were you in years gone past? (Coal Town- Rural business centre.)
2. What are you now? (Tourist Town.)
3. What will you be in the future? (…?)
4. What do you need to change to succeed at becoming point 3? (Lifestyle, friends, bad habits, job, the list is endless for you!)

Well, what if anything, do you need to re-evaluate in your life and what will you do about it?

For me it was changing jobs and moving back to what ii used to do. Who will it be for you? Let us know sometime, Walter