Embrace Change

(Pic Credit: Emile Fakhoury)

Who wants to change or who wants to change things around them. Most people want the status quo or things to go as were. Though as a youth you are more open to change there are still many blind spots for which even you have a rigid attitude.

People resist change because it is unknown. And unknown is exciting for only a handful of people, but scary for most. People get comfortable in their set patterns and routines. To ask them to change a routine even a little irritates them.

Recall the last time your mom asked you to to pick something up on your way home from school or coaching class. Most likely you got irritated and probably even shouted at her. Though what she asked you to do will not affect your time schedule even a bit, but still you exploded. No one wants to get out of their comfort zones.

Change is Difficult for All

The change can be harder for people who have advanced in age. Notice how your grandparents are not comfortable using smartphones or how every time you have to teach your mother to use Facebook or Instagram. This is not by design; it just happens automatically.

As we progress in age, we develop our routines around or work, family needs and environment. People wake up early every weekday and sleep till late on weekends and on holidays to compensate for the loss of sleep. We take the same route to reach the office or home every time.

Young also resist change by not making new habits as the age progresses and they advance in classes and age. For example, scratching tables in the classroom with drawing-compass or bullying other classmates. Or chatting till late in the night on a school night and not waking up the next day. Or putting off an assignment till the last date every time and then making up all the excuses possible. We all are creatures of habits.

It’s Not Just Mind - It’s Biology

If you have learnt typing then most likely you’ll never really forget it, just as swimming or riding a bicycle. Similarly, if you are in a habit of smoking or doing something a certain way, then you won’t change it unless you are really forced to do that. Most people confuse the prominent and subtle habits with muscle memory or lack of willpower. It is not the case in most cases.

Our brains are hard-wired to resist change, as for millions of years the homo-sapiens’ brains developed neurological connections to look for familiar patterns and run away from the unfamiliar ones. Familiarity meant predictability and that meant life, food and shelter. Unfamiliarity meant unpredictability, danger, starvation and insecurity.

Our 95% of the brain function is controlled by its reflexive or reactive part that is geared for fight-flight-freeze. Only 5% of our brain functions are controlled by its reflective or the thinking part. The reflexive part of our brain is where our habits take hold. The reflective part does the cold analysis needed for taking alert decisions.

Familial and Societal Compulsions

We always want to feel excited, happy and desired. And for these we need the people around us to make us feel a certain way. When we set our routines and become predictable, we also become dependable and reliable. The people around us expect us to behave a certain way. When we behave in a certain way our behaviour is rewarded, and when we deviate, we are given penalties.

These societal compulsions drill the habits deep in our brains. The carrot and stick policy start at early childhood with parents and family members. Every good behavior of the child is rewarded with claps or candies. Any deviant behaviour is frowned upon by all. These all have made us behave in ways that are acceptable by people around us and shun other ways of thinking and action.

Change is Not Always Sudden

Let me tell you a story about a frog. No, this one does not turn into a charming prince when a lass kisses it! A young boy catches a baby frog and takes it to his home. The boy took care of the frog, fed it and made it a large pond in the backyard gardens. The frog came to trust the boy for anything and everything. One day, a nasty cousin came visiting. The boy’s mother told the boy not to take this wicked boy to the pond else he may harm the pet. But as things turned out, the cousin convinced the naive boy to bathe the frog in warm water as it was very cold outside.

As the mother of the boy was out in the market, they decided to heat up water in a large pan. The cousin convinced the boy to put the frog in the pan and put it on fire for the water to get warm up slowly and not to freak out the animal. They sat down while the water heated up slowly but surely. The cousin also said that if the water became too hot for the frog to handle it can always jump out of the pan. But as fate would have it, the water temperature grew so slowly that the frog did not realise it was rising continually and eventually it was too late and it died in the pan.

Just like the water heating up slowly, most changes in our lives are not sudden and instant. If we are not as gullible as the frog who blindly trusted the boy or like the boy who did not apply his mind, we might be caught off guard. But that would be our own mistake and not of someone else.

There are almost regular updates and indications of changes that are coming in each field - medicine, healthcare, science, technology, academics, sports, entertainment, gaming, media that it seems impossible to catch up with all of them. But just as CD-ROMs did not replace the Audio cassettes in one day or the iPods and Ped-drives the CD-ROMs, nothing will replace you or your skills just like that. Stay alert at least for the changes that are coming in your field of work and interest.

Black Swans

As the famous mathematician and quat Nassim Nicholas Taleb puts it, the sighting of a thousand of white swans does not rule out the presence of one black swan. He says it is not the probability or the timing of the occurrence of an outlier event that is of concern, but what matters is the possible impact that such an event can have on our lives. If the impact is big enough, then even an event that is very unlikely to happen must be in our calculations.

There are, however, few life changing moments in our lives. Mostly individually and rarely collectively. A sudden break or an accident, a lottery ticket or a family tragedy - they do not happen to us all the time that we almost commit the mistake of not considering them. The recent global lockdowns due to COVID-19 are in the category of once in a lifetime event.

If you are prudent and cautious then you will prepare daily, a little, for such an eventuality. One does not have to be overly paranoid about such things, but these are realities of our lives and it would be better if we prepared ourselves.

Flow, Don’t Resist

Don’t Resist the change. It will happen with you or without you. Even if you don’t like it. Even if you are not prepared. Even if you think you cannot adapt. Even if you pray to all Gods or plead to all powerful people. IT WILL HAPPEN. Change is the only Constant in this world.

So what to do about it? The simplest answer to that question is to look at mother nature. Water has a mind of its own, it seems, and a tendency to continually change its form and shape. It finds the path with least resistance and slowly but surely makes its own way. It freezes and becomes ice when exposed to extreme cold, it evaporates and becomes clouds under sun. the moment it gets the opportunity, it changes back to the purest form. No matter how much we try to pollute it, water always finds a way to purify itself through transformation.

On the other hand, we have rocks, a completely inanimate object that does not react to anything. It keeps on sitting at the same place for millions of years if no external force changes its position. The winds, the rains, the heat, the cold, the flowers - nothing can make it change on its own.

The gradual flow of the water, over thousands of years, however, can cut through the strongest of rocks, look at the canyons world over. Even though the rock has resisted every attempt to let it happen. The rocks actually put hurdles in the way of the free flow of the water. But water keeps coming in drop by drop, builds a critical mass and brings about a deluge so fierce that even mountains cannot hold it anymore.

Open Eyes, Open Ears, Open Arms

Accepting the change is the first step toward changing yourselves. An open mind is your best friend and most important tool towards personal transformation. Open mind means not resisting any type so ideas, thoughts or discussions. It requires deep empathy and understanding. It needs an approach to understand and analyse the data. It adopts a “trust but verify” approach.

No doubt, there will be some really misleading ideas or theories coming your way. No donut there will be doubts and hesitations. No doubt that you will take more time than others to reach a conclusion and a decision. In a primitive world like situation, where you are under attack from natural elements that will be a flaw. But under the real-life situation that we live every day, a thorough decision reached with all possible factors accounted for will have far greater benefits than a quick one. The quick decision may even be very harmful in the long run.

To have open mind you need open eyes - observe, read, and look out for patterns and trends that no one else is looking for. You need to have open ears - listen to people, experts, discuss not debate, keep the ear to the ground and hear the sound of the incoming train from a distance, even if the whistles are not blown. You also need to have open arms - embrace people with different ideas, beliefs and faiths than you. It requires you to be the bigger person to avoid making too many enemies and rivals and making as many friends as possible.

Train, Practice and Repeat

Acquiring a skill is the best thing you can do and the best gift you can give to yourself. But don’t stop there. You know that change is coming, gradual or sudden, doesn’t matter. So, when it knocks on your door, you don’t want to be like a person with only a hammer in his hands. To be a mechanic you need to have many tools in your toolbox. Because to a man with a hammer everything looks like a nail!

So continually upgrade yourself. Invest in yourself as it is the only investment that does not deplete with use and no one can take it away from you. Hone your existing skills to the best possible level, with whatever resources you have. Acquire new skills, practice them, apply them, improve yourself. The cycle of train, practice and repeat should never break.

Remember one thing, it is not a competition with someone else or even with yourself. It is only you becoming water and trying to flow a little farther every day. Each stream has its own speed and its own terrain that only it can cover, and it can understand. No two streams and rivers are alike, so are you. So, drop by drop, collect your energy, your skills and build your critical mass to not only face the changes but to welcome and benefit from them.