What We Call Change

As we know, change can be frightening. But not in the way we think about it. We worry that the changes we make are not always for the better. We might evolve into something that is unrecognizable.

So perhaps a better framework is to start with the question: What does it mean to change?

There is a change in accumulation. You become more of what you already are. A musician who has played for 20 years has not become someone else; they have deepened their understanding of music and can apply experience and theory together.

There is a change in revelation. You do not become different so much as you become more visible to yourself. The “new” person was latent. This comes with time, life experience, and ultimately applying the wisdom we have learned along the way. "To thine own self be true."

And there is a change as substitution. One value, habit, or identity replaces another. This is the one that triggers the fear: saying goodbye to the old and accepting the new. Or perhaps living with the shame of feeling like we are failing. (After all, you could change again.)

And that is what makes it so difficult to talk about our struggles in our culture. "Not happy with your career? Why don’t you change it then?" If it were easy, of course, it would already have been done. Our culture treats substitution as a simple choice, which makes the difficulty feel like a personal failure.

It's worth pointing out: We’ve often fall into this trap of being afraid of one thing and calling it all things. Which means a lot of the change that has made you who you are, you didn’t even recognize as change.