Change, Change, Change
Anticipating Change
Change has everything to do with life. Change is the inevitable result of the passage of time. External changes impact us, and the changes we make impact the world in small, and even sometimes, in larger ways.
Change seems to affect everything and be everywhere like never before, especially as we age. But truthfully, rapid change was constant when we were children as well. In our youth, we looked forward to getting bigger, stronger, older, and more privileged. As we matured, many of us began to dread changes in routines, responsibilities, and in our bodies. We worried about legal, policy, and administrative changes altering our attempts at academic achievement, employment, and career progression. As societal norms evolved, we became anxious over social acceptance, political correctness, gender roles, and dating success. Some embraced the opportunities that change offered; it stressed others out.
Concern over the unknown is rational, but misplaced fear is not healthy and can overwhelm our emotions and ability to reason clearly. Much change is both natural and unavoidable. We can ignore some changes with denial and confront others with resistance. Or we can accept the inevitability of change, prepare for it, and go with the flow.
We can disregard technological innovations - accepting life in the slow lane. We can sometimes successfully fight proposed legislative and administrative changes to laws, permits, etc. such as preventing fast-food or bar establishments in our neighborhoods. Or when we see changes coming, we can benefit by rapidly adapting to them – such as when streaming began to emerge, we probably wish we had possessed the foresight to sell our CD & DVD collections while they still had value.
Most senior citizens have experienced major changes in their lives, including some, or possibly all, of the following:
Education comes with demonstrable changes in daily living and relationships. Whether setting off for kindergarten, first grade, junior high, high school, or college, the new environment will be quite different. When schooling requires living away from home, the changes can be even more extreme.
Careers begin with transitions from school into first jobs or the military and often include relocation. Changing jobs, careers, or military status presents additional challenges. Unemployment and retirement can have a tremendous impact, as can business failures and major financial successes.
Personal lives undergo constant change throughout life’s journey from dating to marrying, having children, and possibly divorcing. PTSD from experiencing a natural (or unnatural) disaster first-hand can be debilitating. Coming out into the LGTBQ+ world is life altering.
Disability through injury or illness can totally disrupt one’s life whether it’s our own or that of a loved one. Even more extreme, the death of a family member or close friend is often devastating.
The challenges of new situations and opportunities allowed (or even forced) us to reinvent ourselves. It is truly a gift that we have this chance to “start over” at the various inflection points of life. It is easy to become very fixed in our ways and hang onto patterns of living that do not suit us at all as we transition from one life situation to another. Maybe this is the time to overcome inertia; quit living our lives through the rearview mirror and evaluate present and near-future prospects.
“Oh, God, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and insight to know the one from the other.”
Attributed to Reinhold Niebuhr
We are not dead yet and may even have decades left above ground. Time is precious, so why not make the most of it? It is not time to give up our dreams because we have reached a certain age. We can still be productive, pursue fun activities, and seek romance with a loving companion.
We may not have created formal bucket lists, but we probably have much that we’d still really like to do, although we might not yet see a path to its accomplishment. It is often helpful to adopt an attitude that allows us to step out of our cozy shells to do what we really want. If our efforts do not work out, we can either write them off or try again with a different approach. It may be a suitable time to be a bit more self-centered. Let us not allow others’ limited vison, lack of approval, or influence to subvert our inner needs or desires. Let us not allow the risk of embarrassment or failure to put a wet blanket over us. We are not living our lives for the pleasure or amusement of others; it is our life to live as we wish. If not now, when?
But rational, intentional change does not come easy for most of us. It requires an open mind. It requires us to reexamine the status quo and consider alternatives. It requires the givens (habits, rules, beliefs….) of the past to be reevaluated for their current applicability. We don’t want to be living our lives and limiting our choices by guidelines and constraints that no longer serve us.
Efforts vs Outcomes
When we consider our individual capacity to control our destinies, we most often overestimate our own role in the outcomes. There are many variables that we are unaware of or unable to influence, so no matter how herculean our efforts are, the results fall short of both hopes and expectations. We can improve our successes through due diligence, but ultimately, we aren’t in control. Let me offer a real-life example of a real estate developer I knew back in the 70’s:
Howie was an architect in California during the boom years. He bought vacant land for small developments and houses for improvement. By knowing the market, selecting appropriate properties, and designing appealing projects, he thought he was pretty much in control of his career and net worth. He continued to ride the inflating economy up and up – until the 80’s when the prime interest rate went to 20%. He was highly leveraged, his investments went under, and he lost his shirt. So how did Howie view what happened to him?
He thought he knew the market and was responsible for his successes. But he had a lot of help from the increased demand for housing in the face of a limited supply – neither of which he had any control over. When the interest rate crisis occurred, he was unprepared, unable to adjust, and out of control. In the good years, he took credit for his accomplishments as a guru, but when it fell apart, he blamed the Federal Reserve for the catastrophic interest rates he failed to anticipate. While the government did lose control of the economy leading to the destruction of many businesses, Howie had overextended himself because he failed to recognize the change in the market before it was too late.
The point of the story is that, while our actions can bring success or failure, they aren’t controlling the outcomes strictly on their own. We tend to take full credit for our wins but blame outside factors for our losses. Unpredictable forces are always present and can dominate the results. Nature is governed by the laws of physics, chemistry, biology, and statistical probabilities that generally trump any of our attempts to counter them. This in no way means we should give up or not try to set and reach our goals. It suggests that we shouldn’t be hard on ourselves when our efforts fall short. By all means, make corrections and go forth, but remain humble when we succeed.
Risks vs Rewards
Can we really control anything meaningful in our lives? Yes, we can make our own decisions, it’s just that we can’t control the externalities or the outcomes. We can control our own attitude, and this gives us critical influence on results. There is a risk of failure in everything we do, but there is also risk of failure when we do nothing. Some examples:
1. On the recommendation of a friend, Mary bought a rising tech stock and watched it quadruple in price. She contemplated selling but decided to wait a see because it was still rising significantly. When the tech bubble burst, her investment tanked.
2. Bill was working for a large telephone book publisher in the 80’s and 90’s. When cell phones began to become popular in the late 90’s, some of Bill’s associates decided to leave the industry. Bill loved his job and feared going into unchartered territory and switching careers, and he figured it was risky to change. By 2010, white page publishing had plummeted, as did industry employment. At 55, Bill was facing dismal opportunities for a new career.
3. At 62, Eric became a widower. He was devastated by the loss of his best friend and devoted wife. He grieved for a couple of years. He longed for a restoration of his happy married life and hoped to find love again. But Eric was not proactive and didn’t make an effort to meet new people. He feared the vulnerability of using online dating or engaging in new activities to seek out potential relationships. He wanted to develop a new romantic relationship, but his hesitation to try dating and assume the risk of failure guaranteed his continued life of loneliness.
Often, we don’t consider that there is risk in ignoring a potential change, and many times, this risk of a bad outcome is worse with the status quo than by accepting the risk of going in a new direction. It is important to realize that ignoring opportunities to change something is a decision in and of itself. Therefore, it behooves us to evaluate the risk of doing nothing as well as the risk of changing. While we can’t control the outcomes of many decisions due to externalities, the better our preparation, hard work, and decision making, the greater the likelihood of favorable outcomes.