The Trauma of Change

Change is always loss.

A therapist told me that back in the 1990s, and I argued with her. These were changes I wanted to make, changes I was trying to make, changes that would improve my own life and the lives of those around me. If I could make those changes, I said, everyone would be better off, including myself. 

Yes, she said. She wasn't talking about net benefits. She wasn't denying the real anticipated gains. What makes change hard, she said, is that in the moment, change is always loss. 

It has become one of the most valuable insights anyone's ever given me. 

It's so hard to say, "I was wrong." It's hard to form a new habit, and it's even harder to break an old one. Every Sunday I open my beloved Panda Planner to the pages for the week ahead, where I set my goals and priorities, and I say I will walk at least half an hour a day and I will practice my guitar every day. Every Sunday, those pages ask me to evaluate the week that's just ended, and I have to admit that I didn't walk every day — sometimes I didn't walk any day — and I didn't do my guitar lesson every day, either. Because setting aside the half hour for walking or the half hour of guitar would mean that much less time fooling around on social media, or playing the New York Times Spelling Bee, or solving one of my four daily crossword puzzles (NYT, Washington Post, The Atlantic, and now The Daily Beast has one too). I'd have to give some of those things up. 

And those are small things, those are dumb things. So how much harder is it to change big things? 

Years ago, a friend lost a significant amount of weight without surgery. He told me that one of the hardest things about it was the effect it had on his social life. He said he thought his bad eating and drinking habits had made his friends feel better about their own choices, to the extent of feeling that his presence gave them permission to indulge. Once he changed his eating habits, he felt less welcome, and it made him wonder why he'd ever been welcome at all. 

This is not an excuse for not making the changes we need to make. It's a plea for kindness as we make those changes, and as the people around us make changes. Don't be skeptical about people's sincere desire to change, please. Don't mock us, please. You can ask how we plan to make amends, because the amends are what make these changes meaningful — but please, don't assume that past transgressions mean those changes aren't valuable and real. Like the prodigal son's father, let's celebrate the changes, the return to what should be our common home. 

It's only tangentially relevant, but this is the song that's in my head this morning. I never even was that much of a Wilson Phillips fan.