Change - If the dog can handle it, you can too!

Change.  Why is it so difficult? I’m not talking about big changes like careers, moves or marital status, but I’m referring to the smaller changes we are faced with day to day. I know we are all creatures of habit and even if we don’t like our habits I guess we like knowing what our habits are.  Yesterday one of my girlfriends was explaining how her Rottweiler doesn’t like change.  I found this funny for a dog as I was envisioning him telling her, “You know, Cathy, I don’t like those new treats you bought me.”   I guess every time something is different, for example someone coming over and putting their shoes in the entryway, the dog barks like crazy, and gets my girlfriend so he can show her what is different.  Then she just tells him that everything is okay.  I guess reassuring a dog is easier than reassuring people.  Yesterday morning at church the Pastor announced that the computer had a virus so the large screen used for showing song lyrics, and bible verses was not available and we would have to resort to the old way of using our worship folders and actually turning to the pages in the hymnals in our pews.  A group of elderly church members (who always sit in the same spot every week) actually applauded and cheered.  How funny!  I love being able to relax at church and just view the screen for lyrics but evidently that high tech change must have been painful for a few.

I guess routines are just comfortable.  How many times do you go out to the same restaurant and order the exact same meal you did the last time you were there, although you keep promising to order something different next time?  We are afraid to take the risk that something we are unfamiliar with might not be as good as something we already like.  People often buy the same breed of dog over and over because they don’t want to risk rocking the boat with a breed they aren’t as familiar with.  I think the generation of kids being raised today adapt to change much easier than the rest of us.  Technology changes so often and kids today aren’t afraid of it.  VHS to DVD to Blue ray, floppy disc to DVD to memory cards, the changes happen, whether we like it or not.  We still keep all our old cassette tapes in a box in the basement – I don’t know why – I guess so someday we can take them to the Antique Road Show.  Math curriculum has changed for kids today and the kids didn’t mind but we parents sure did.  I’m still unable to multiply double digits with the new diagonal grid method but my kids seem to easily be able to go back and forth.  As a substitute teacher I’ve seen some great teaching methods that current teachers use today but I can’t help but question why they changed some learning methods that I learned in school. We had to memorize so much more than kids today.  Our multiplication facts and state capitals are stuck in our heads for life.  Heck, we can still remember our phone numbers from elementary school but kids today don’t have their own friends phone numbers memorized.  They don’t have to.  Technology has made it that a lot of that memorizing is unnecessary.  I hate the changes that have occurred in school lunch programs.  I loved our little lunch ladies who served our hot spaghetti, green beans and garlic bread with cubed jello for dessert.  The school lunches of today look like something you would get at 7-11.  The kids don’t complain – they just bring a sack lunch.

Change creates fear of the possibility of things being worse.  Kids of today live in a fast paced, high tech, easy communication, instant information highway society.  They have lived through 9-11 and war.  They are used to change and adapt accordingly.   Change is inevitable.  It might be a different world today if more of us embraced changed instead of resisted it so much. So many changes are good but difficult to stick with.  When I try sticking to a diet or exercise routine I almost always end up with my old habits coming back but I think instead of embracing the change in my routine I begin to resent it and miss my old ways of eating or of not exercising.  I read something once about not being able to make positive changes if your daily routine doesn’t change – this makes sense to me.

Try a week of embracing change instead of fighting it and see what interesting things develop. I’ve got to go now and play my 8-track tapes.