Change Anything
I've spent my entire adult life working with people who wanted to change something. Whether it was the world, their diet, their workplace, or their relationship to substances, the one thing it all had in common was change.
In 12 Step meetings all over the world, people intone in unison, “God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I can not change.” The people I have known who frequent 12 Step meetings seem to become very good at accepting things. I never was. I wanted change. I wanted to get to the cause of what was wrong and do something about it. I was not that popular in 12 Step meetings, especially when I was doing well. But enough about that for now.
There is a common saying in harm reduction, I’m pretty sure I read it in Over the Influence by Patt Denning and Jeannie Little, that goes, if you’re not ready to change your relationship with substances, change something. Change your shower gel, change the way you walk to work, change the side of bed you sleep on. It works. Changing something, anything, gets you in the habit of change.
Creating a minor disruption can pave the way for a more major disruption. In 2008, when dealing with almost debilitating anxiety, I dropped into a yoga class. Someone had warned me that yoga is a transformative practice, but I had no idea I would start my Masters in Public Health, leave my first career, and start on a second. It all started to evolve out of a simple decision to take a class at the studio down the block.
In what may be the best book I’ve read all year, Atomic Habits, James Clear talks about making small changes to build up to bigger ones. The small ones add up quickly. Unfortunately, bad habits add up quickly too. An extra drink, and extra 200 calories at night, an extra hour of TV that turns into an hour less sleep… gradually.
So this is a blog about change. Change is inevitable, and yet change is so hard. We are all changing, often in ways we don’t want to be. We can just accept things as the natural devolution into chaos, old age, weight gain and a general feeling of irrelevance, or we can do something about it. I like to do something about it.
Change anything.