Change is harder than pain. Pain, physical or mental, is an indicator that something has gone awry. Of late I have a pain in my lower back that comes upon me when I’ve been sitting too long or too much. This happened to me once before, years ago. There is a twenty-minute Pilates routine that, if I do it three or four times a week, will not only make the pain go away it will keep it away. Yet, I still find that days will pass, and I will instead follow my old routine rather than insert this relatively small alteration.
Change is harder than truth. There are many harsh truths out there. Climate change, aging, injustice. We know that there are things that we not only can do, but must do, to slow, postpone, or even avoid the negative aspects of these truths. Instead we do that which is easy, which is routine, which is familiar. Our basal ganglia, the lizard brain, actively resists anything that changes how we live, even when we are aiming for improvement. Knowing the cost, we simply bury our heads in the sand and hope for the best.
Change is stronger than dying. The enlightenment of a near death experience. A dangerous or deadly diagnosis. These things should be life altering. For many they are. But most, even the most motivated, find ourselves sliding back into the same old habits. Even simple things like taking our medication as prescribed, can be difficult. Instead we fall back into old habits that don’t fit us anymore. Habits that leave us uncomfortable but still, somehow, have a powerful draw.
Inertia, this propensity to do nothing, can be a good thing. It helps maintain homeostasis, the equilibrium or balance of our minds, our bodies, even our societies. Physiologically it maintains the automatic adjustments our bodies constantly make to remain stable. Adjustments necessary for our survival. The problem is routine makes us feel comfortable and secure – even when we aren’t. Change challenges our neural pathways. They then fight to return to that which has become automatic. In the effort to maintain homeostasis, the mind, body, and spirit actively resist even the most positive of changes. Changes that makes us feel better. Changes that make us better.
Change is hard.
Trying means changing. Our ability to resist change is extraordinarily powerful. Once we get to a certain point in life, when we’ve done a thing a thousand times over, our minds and bodies become complacent. Comfortable. When we are shaken out of this comfort zone our minds and bodies fight to push us back in this zone. Even when we are moving forward to a better place. Which is why trying often means failing.
On the flip side, if we are failing it means that we are still trying. If we are still trying, we may attain success. I say may instead of can because what we are striving for may well be impossible. The timing, the technology, the social construct of the situation may mean the odds are forever out of our favor. But in striving for the impossible we can achieve the improbable, the unlikely.
I’ve read that a good time to insert change is when you are already in flux. If you are moving anyway, making big changes anyway, what’s one more? This doesn’t work for me. On the contrary, I find myself completely overwhelmed and clinging to the familiar. Even when I know it’s not good for me. Even when I know it’s wrong.
On a physical level it means too much wine and cheese and too few green, leafy vegetables. On a mental level it can mean allowing the voices in my head that try to derail my future with obsessions of the past free range. On a social note, I am less a social justice warrior than a squire. Steeped in a background of respectability politics, colorblind thinking, and a focus on merit that disregards the systems at play I can understand people’s resistance to change. Learning about what our ancestors did or didn’t do can make us uncomfortable. Realizing how we benefit from systems in place can make us resentful. Especially if we don’t feel particularly well off.
In a few months I will be returning home to the US. I have strong feelings about the move and all of them are mixed. One of the positives is being able to be a part of change. To work with my fellow Americans to turn my country in the direction that we have idealized since our inception. A place of Freedom and justice. For all.