Change Aversion

I have a number of principles that I try to live by, some I list below:

• Trust the Universe
• You alone are responsible for your own happiness
• If you are not happy with your life - go change it

If you read my book, you will see, I hope, that I have done my best to follow these principles.


However, as we get older change becomes more difficult to embrace.

After thirteen years in the same company, doing pretty much the same job I felt myself becoming more and more dissatisfied. Yes, it was a good feeling to be so familiar with the work, and the company, but while familiarity may not necessarily breed contempt, it does frequently reduce challenge and increase boredom.

Why, I hear you ask, did it take 13 years for that to happen? Well, I have to admit I went through stages of being bored during that time, each time it happened I was able to reinvent my position so that it became more challenging. But eventually that became more difficult, and then when changes I disagreed with, outside my control, occurred within the company I decided it was time to make a move. A previous blog entry deals with making that move.

I have to say I was surprised at how difficult it was to push myself to do it, and I really mean push. The temptation to crawl back into my comfort zone was hard to resist, but that was exactly what gave me the incentive to make the change - if only for change sake, but as I said, my reasons were more than just a need for change. However I do believe firmly in my husband's favorite quote

"Adapt or perish, now as ever, is nature's inexorable imperative."

― H.G. Wells

And so I found myself on a 'plane to Seattle for two weeks training, a few days before my **mutter-mutter**th  birthday. Before I started training I had a serious talk with myself.  I warned myself that I would be overloaded with information, if I was lucky I would be able to understand about 5% of it, and remember about 2%.  I also reminded myself that I had started new jobs before and thought I would never be able to figure it out, but I managed then and I will manage again.

It took a lot to not panic those first two weeks, and possibly even more the following month when I was no longer training, but had returned to Austin and was actually doing. At first I felt like I was driving unfamiliar roads in a thick fog. The fog is letting up some now, but still very much in evidence. And while I am still drinking from a fire hose, the pressure is reducing somewhat.

What was unexpected was my inability to pay attention to any of my normal pass times, my embroidery machine sat idle for weeks, this blog has been totally neglected and my next book has been given only a few fleeting thoughts. However, I think I am back on track again.

Now the important thing to remember is that I still don't know very much and all I can hope for is knowing enough to ask the right questions - and more importantly - direct these questions to the right people.



The great thing right now is, everything is so challenging, even what will eventually become tedious contains a challenge. As has always been the case before, I am so glad I made the change. It was hard, and though I didn't go to the moon - I do believe JFK's quote works - and I do love so many of his quotes:

"We choose to go to the moon in this decade and do the other things, not because they are easy, but because they are hard."

― John F Kennedy 

And here are a few quotes from Project Life

"Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change. The Universe is change."

― Marcus Aurelius

"We must be the change we want to see."

― Mahatma Gandhi

"If you do not create change, change will create you."

― Unknown