When Complexity Overwhelms, Is It Finally Time for a Change?

I hit a moment of change last May when I decided to sell my old car. I hit a moment of change nearly five years ago when I left my job to go out on my own. Neither of those changes came about suddenly, rather, the pressure to change built up gradually.

But sometimes BIG Change is not warranted - sometimes you just need to freshen things up a little, sometimes you need a little change, a tweaking, so to speak. Whenever I begin to feel unsettled with my home life, I dig deeper to see what's bothering me and I ponder what I can do to renew my relationship - because I'm not ready for a wholesale change there, and I don't think I ever will be - I love my wife. But sometimes, even that relationship needs more energy and some adjustments are called for.

The point I'm exploring here is that as powerful a hold as the Status Quo has on our lives, it makes sense to re-evaluate on a regular basis to see how well your "Tried-and-True" is holding up. Over time, even in the best systems, employees get stale, machines slow down and become less effective, strategies wear thin...nothing in this universe lasts, even the Sun and the Earth are winding down, ever so slowly.

So, how do you feel about Change?

Sometimes, change is warranted not because of environmental shifts but just because complexity has reached a breaking point. One problem with evolution or incrementalism that avoids the shock of bigger change by changing slowly by adding to the Status Quo, is that complexity can build up to where more complexity adds little to no improvement, but most certainly adds more stress. I've heard this complaint about software, where instead of adding ever more lines of code, it becomes more expedient to start over with a cleaner approach.

So, if you feel your stress level rising, or notice that you get stressed over things that used to not bother you, take a look at your situation and ask yourself if its time to make a change to address what's bothering you. Does the situation call for a small change, or is something bigger in order?

We can become so used to the Status Quo that we forget why we do things, we just always have.

We can become so used to the Status Quo that we become attached to it.

We can become so used to the Status Quo that we consciously avoid something that would be better for us because we have turned Change into some kind of Big Negative, when in fact, it's the Status Quo that has become the Big Negative.

Sometimes, we need to put a hold on our emotional brain for a moment, the one that keeps us in our current situation - "Better the Devil that I know than the one I don't". Sometimes, we need to shed our assumptions and look clearly at our situation in a new light. Sometimes, we need to be more conscious concerning our attitudes about change.

Sometimes Simple can be like a breath of fresh air, when we have become so used to Complex...

Sometimes, the world has come up with a better mousetrap, but we don't know because we haven't been out there looking. Or, we know, but still, we find that we've become used to our old mousetrap. "You don't understand, I like hitting myself in the head with a hammer..."

So, how do you feel about Change?