As we head into a new year people have “change” on the brain. It’s a time of reflection on what worked and didn’t work the previous 12 months and to perhaps implement better habits, modify routines, or commit to trying something new. What do you do then when your default setting is CHANGE?
Let me explain – I was raised in a military home. Change was an inevitable way of life. Every few years we were in a new home, new city, new school. I resented it. I swore when I grew up I wouldn’t do this to my family but as I moved into adulthood I realized the pattern of change was hard to shake. Even if I wasn’t moving I felt a strong urge to change something in my life every 3 years – jobs, friends, hair, anything! It was like a Pavlovian response.
Change was a comfortable coping mechanism. I remember with every move there would be cautious optimism. I would convince myself I was getting a do-over. Whatever failures or flaws I had in the last place, I could change and tweak in the new one. Unfortunately insecurities aren’t inclusive to a geographic location and those pesky things would follow me around wherever I was!
Those same urges persist. If I’m at a high anxiety point in my life the first thing I do is start scrolling through job ads or real estate listings. I’m sure my friends and family are sick of my grand “new career” or “moving” plans. They give me placated smiles knowing full well I likely won’t go through with it. It’s not out of lack of motivation, or fear that I don’t follow through. It’s because the reasoning part of my brain clears out the “pack up and hide from my problems” fog that regularly moves in. It also helps that for all my flighty tendencies, my partner is equally as grounded. He gets me through the confirmation biased list of pros I create in my head. The story I tell myself of how everything will be better if we just change! We now work together to curate contentment.
Whatever we struggle with will no doubt hitch a ride on that moving truck or work bag. That or we’ll be trading them in for a whole new set, so why not work on ourselves in the present and learn to appreciate what we have here and now?
It’s settled, 2021 will be my year of unchanging, continuing, prevailing, remaining, staying… and any other word I could find when I googled “what is the opposite of change?” I will only look at home listing to peep on decorating styles, and lucidly dream about living in a sprawling lakeside estate one day.
Until then, I will grant my life this affirmation, to quote the famous Mark Darcy from Bridget Jones, “I like you very much. Just as you are”