For some reason, on some job, at some time in the past I needed a quote about revolution. Now my standard approach in a situation like as I've described I pretty much grab a Beatles lyric. (see above) But in this situation I needed something different. Which led me to this – “A revolution is a struggle to the death between the past and the future.” Fidel Castro.

This quote worked for that project, whatever it was. And though why I needed it faded from my memory, the quote stuck with me.

The quote resurfaced in my head just the other day. I was in the midst of a business/social gathering. Swirling around me were the usual phrases advertising veterans exchange these days - “Everything’s changed” “Advertising is a dying art.” “It used to be about the big idea.” And “Those late-night, post-shoot, chocolate milkshakes at Shutters were pretty fucking good, weren’t they?”

With my grey beard, reading glasses and fond memories of clouds of spray mount wafting through the studio, I am an old man in what’s always seemed to be a young person’s racket. And as a descendent of fine Irish stock I do love to lament the fading glow of a once golden time. But not this night. Instead it was the sage words of El Comandante. And a desire to talk about something else.

The past is the past. And the past always loses to today, to the future. And while there were some really great things – weeks of nothing but concepting, ordering sushi angry, chair massages, lunching at Balthazar, etc. I think, if I were honest, the thing I miss the most is not really working so hard.

Back then, occasionally, there were truly prodigious outflows of effort. But today, I work hard, a lot, on numerous different things, almost all of the time. In the car, in the shower, in the checkout line - thinking, thinking, thinking. Discovering this, understanding that, learning another thing about some other thing.

I’m just now realizing about all the work is how much better a creative it has made all of us. I knew how to deliver a killer spot or create a great campaign. Today I know how to deliver killer sales numbers or create a movement. Just think about how much more powerful we actually are today compared to those yesterdays when we were convinced we truly were the most important people in just about any room.

Were the good old days better? In some ways, undoubtedly, yes.

But given a choice I’ll take being better over better days. The tools we have, the means we can deploy. The unfolding understanding of human nature. The growing belief in the age-old power of narrative in our work. All of it makes our work, our effectiveness and ourselves better.

Today I am. Tomorrow I will be.

And it’s going to be all right.