I completely missed yesterday's post, which is unusual. However, I am working full time on site again more than an hours travelling time from home. It is a while since I have done so, so I am having to adjust all my working and writing patterns. This got me thinking about times of transition.
I don't know about you, but I find that the pattern of my life is determined by routines, by habits. Some are good, some bad, but they do provide the pattern of life. Every so often something happens that forces change. Change is uncomfortable and requires adjustment, so there are lags while things shift around.
Human beings are creatures of habit. We are also territorial animals.
Look at the way we attempt to put our stamp on new areas. You move into a new office. You look at your work station. It's strange, alien. It remains so until you put your particular stamp on it. Then it becomes familiar, your territory.
We all know this, but we actually reject it when it applies to others. We push for change, for restructuring, for new things, and then wonder why we strike resistance,
It's odd, but generally those who push hardest for change are those who feel most secure in their own general life. This holds for most commentators, senior managers and policy advisers. Alternatively, those pushing for revolutionary change at the other end of the spectrum are often very insecure and wish for a new life, wish to overthrow the system. Both wish to force change on others.
I accept that these are generalisations, but they are still useful. I will return to them in later posts.
5 comments:
Hi Jim
The para beginning "It's odd"
Have read that several times without understanding. Probably my fault, but if you would expand, or reword, it would help.
Trying to self-analyse (not a strength of mine) I'd say if I were at all insecure, I'd actually resist change as being a potential threat to my tenuous control?
Anyway, I'm intrigued to see where you might go with that.
kvd
Yes, there is something wrong with the sentence beginning " Alternatively, those pushing for change..."
But I do see the paradox of change being most pushed EITHER by the over-secure OR by the very insecure.
I haven't always coped with change. In my personal life, for example, I tried (consciously or not?) to maintain 1995 well into this century -- in most ways very inappropriately. Not a phenomenon I will be expanding on any time soon; those who know what I mean know it and that's all that matters.
Change is just so, well, inevitable. Everything in life and the universe reminds us of that. "Change and decay in all around I see," as the hymn says. One (or something) that "changest not" is thus very appealing.
Neil probably gets closer to my lack of understanding. Although having thought about it a bit more I find both 'halves' of the para counter-intuitive.
More words please Jim ;)
kvd
Neil, kvd. Paragraph amended to hopefully improve clarity.Further post follows.
Without the routine and the mundane, how does one achieve balance? That is not a koan!
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