Change

What is your knee-jerk reaction when you think about "change"? 

Consider each of the following situations and your response if that change were present in your life:

• Cell phone company says you'll have to change your phone number
• A friend calls to cancel plans
• You decide to buy a new car
• Your employer is downsizing, and you will be laid off.
• You decide to cut a friend out of your life after too many years of mistrust 
• You've been diagnosed with a disease that you'll have to monitor for the rest of your life.

While these scenarios capture widely different ends of the change spectrum, the thread that connects them is that the change will impact many different aspects of the person's life. Minimally, the person with the phone number change will now have to gather their contacts, decide on a way to communicate this change to others, and alter any records that show the previous number. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the person diagnosed has to first understand what this means in the scope of his/her life, begin working with doctors to set up a strategic plan, set up new lifestyle habits to compensate, and a million more life-altering adjustments.

But these two examples focus on change that happens to us. What about the two examples above with the word 'decide' in them? When you processed those, did you get the sense that the change would be a little easier to face, because there was control in the decision-making?

I've faced an overwhelming amount of change in my life in the past year or so, and so I've been reflecting on change that we choose versus change that happens to us. And I'm still not certain that one is easier to face than the other.

I guess when change happens to you, you can point your finger to a cause beyond yourself--God, the weather, a scapegoat, the economy. But when you choose change in your life, it can feel as though you are walking on eggshells, trying to prove to yourself and anyone who matters to you that this was the right choice. When you make a decision that causes change in your life, you not only live through the logistical shifts, you also bear the burden of the decision itself.

When a friend calls to cancel plans, it's easy to say, "she's so unreliable" or "he's got a lot on his plate, so it's understandable". We get to decide, as an outside observer, how we want to respond to the change that has been placed upon us.

However, when you decide to cut a friend out of your life, you own that decision. Sure, you can point to all of the things she did 'wrong' and all of the ways she proved that she couldn't be trusted, but at the end of the day, you cut the cord. You altered the future for both of you.

It's obvious, then, why most of us don't choose change in our lives. Making decisions versus passively absorbing the reality requires accountability and a sense of ownership over how life plays out from there.

But that's just a lie we tell ourselves, isn't it? I've posted on this concept before--that when we don't make a change, we're actually accepting reality. No choice is still a choice.

When we avoid making choices, we sense that the universe or God has the control, and we are simply adjusting accordingly. But maybe when we make choices, we feel accountable because we can visibly see our hand in creating the future that plays out.

We need to stop allowing ourselves to have it both ways. Either we are in control every minute of every day, or we are just along for the ride.

Which is it?

When you look back at the scenarios above, it's easy to see which ones the person had a choice in initiating. However, all of those scenarios do involve choice in how we respond. It seems like a cycle, then. Even when change comes into your life that you didn't choose, you have the choice to respond positively or negatively, which will ultimately impact future events in your life.

Choosing change and absorbing change aren't mutually exclusive. They are interwoven throughout life. It's just easier for us to excuse one over the other.



Here's to making choices not being choices,


Kristy