A fear of change is a fear of life

-- James Edwards

I’ve noticed over the years that the notion of change seems to have some inherent negative connotation. Many people, if not most, possess an instinctive resistance to change. They favor their cherished routines and avoid trying new things. Unfortunately, this common affinity for the same, often outmoded, practices and beliefs reveals shortsighted thinking about change—the type that has resisted progress through the ages.

But change is the one thing we can count on—an invariable constant of life. Nature is replete with examples. The seasons; night and day; the moon; the stars; the northern lights; the wind; phases of matter (the shifting of matter from one form to another; for example, melting, freezing, evaporation or condensation); weather; harvest; butterflies; the blooming of a rose; snowflakes; rain; it’s all about change. Physiologic functions such as breathing, eating, sleeping and exercising all require change. The connections between brain cells are constantly changing. The cells in your body are said to change every seven years, different ones at different rates—some every few hours. Organized changes of tone give us music and lend clarity and expression to our speech. Changes of reflected light give us color. The concept of a scale, a continuum, a spectrum, or anything that notes measurable differences of any kind presupposes change. The examples could go on ad infinitum. The whole world is in a state of change and transformation.

Variety is indeed the spice of life. In reality, who wants to live in a world where nothing ever changes? Where every day is exactly the same as the one before? There would be nothing to look forward to. No seasons, no music, speech would be flat and monotone, and everything would be grey. What a boring world that would be. To be content with the status quo often precedes a state of decline and atrophy, and is the first sign of ruin. Change is synonymous with growth. It’s associated with movement, action and progress. Stagnation is a sign of pathology.

I believe the primary reason we shrink from change is fear—a fear of the unknown and a fear that we’ll be unable to handle the new challenges we’ll encounter. The human mind is a powerful thing but sometimes it works against us. Our imagination is not always kind. We have an unfortunate tendency to exaggerate the risks and fear things that have little, if any, chance of actually happening. Perhaps that’s what Franklin Roosevelt meant when he admonished the nation, “There is nothing to fear but fear itself.” Imagined fears are just that, imagined. They are creations of our minds that grow in the dark—elusive and haunting. Simply identifying them and writing them on paper is a huge step toward dispelling them. Imagined fears are groundless because we do not know and therein is the rub.

Change means stepping out of the known into the unknown, and that can be very unsettling. We humans like visible, solid, tangible reality. No doubt about it. We don’t like mystery. We wrestle with the abstract and stumble over ambiguity. We like to know the end from the beginning. If we can’t see a thing clearly, it seems daunting and scary to us and we tend to avoid it. Fear, if we don’t act against it, can paralyze us and keep us locked in unhealthy behaviors and suffocating environments in which no growth is possible.

Relationships are a prime example of this. So many people are not only unhappy in their relationships; they’re utterly miserable. Yet they stay. Why? There may be other reasons but I believe a big one is a fear of the unknown. In a bad relationship, we know what that’s like and what to expect. However bad it is, it’s familiar, and that, perhaps unconsciously, gives us the illusion of control over our circumstances. It’s less frightening than the unknown. A leap of faith can be scary: Will I be able to survive? Do I have what it takes? Will it be worse than my present situation? Will I end up alone?

Immobilized by fear, we eventually begin to feel trapped and helpless, like there’s no way out. We try to adapt to the misery by convincing ourselves that our situation is not as bad as it really is and that we aren’t as unhappy as we really are. On a steady diet of denial, self-deceit and learned helplessness, we settle into toxic climates that bring incalculable harm to our souls. So, while we inwardly wish for change, hoping that some day it will magically occur, we do nothing to insure that it will. This is a form of fatalism—whatever will be will be, turning over one’s life to the Fates (which I feel strongly compelled to point out are mythological!). Doing the same thing over and over (in this case, nothing) but expecting different results has been defined as insanity. Either way, we relinquish all control over the course of our lives.

Waiting for things to change on their own—for our situation to mystically transform itself—also violates a sound, scientific principle. Newton’s cause and effect doesn’t support this “wait and see” mentality. In fact, it states that if something is inactive, it will remain inactive until acted upon by a greater force. That force can be our resolute decision to change. We are not victims of our circumstances and few things in life are carved in stone. Life flows, which is the nature of change, rather like a river or bubbling brook than a swamp or hardened cement—unless we get stuck in fear. We need to believe strongly in ourselves and that our steps toward change will indeed be rewarded. The fact that we can change is one of the most hopeful things about the human species. We can adapt, learn, dream, explore, problem-solve, create, heal, love…live. When we stop changing, we stop living.

In short, we have the power to change our lives. Change is the essence of life. If you don’t like something about your life—rather than passively accepting it and feeling trapped in it—change it into something more appealing that looks more like the life you want to live. Your life should never feel like a prison. It should be an adventure. It’s meant to be lived, not merely endured. Change is not always immediate. Some things do take time. But you can make the decision and start taking the steps today. Don’t settle for what your life was yesterday. There’s a new day dawning and its script hasn’t been written yet. How do you want it to go? What can you do, now, to start anew? What are you waiting for?

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