Van Beek: Change is hard
We all complain about the status quo and seek change, however, when change arrives, we begin to hyperventilate. Suddenly, the devil we know is much better than the one we don’t, regardless of future potential.
When the new year arrives, we sing about times gone by but do so with our eye on a brighter future. Regardless of our current state, we always seek to improve and plan for things to get better.
We create resolution lists of things we wish to eliminate and what we want to add. Oftentimes, by this time of the year, we’ve eliminated most of them. Why?
Because change is hard. Even when we’ve spent so much time complaining about current conditions, just the thought of change, when we’ve become accustomed to the existing dysfunction, creates a level of anxiety that we can’t quite understand.
Uncertainty. When we head in a different direction, we step out of our comfort zone and begin to imagine where new explorations will take us. The motivation is for a positive outcome and that always looks glorious. However, the sun doesn’t always shine and when the clouds approach and we get drenched, we begin to question our sanity in even stepping out.
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Kids face it when they leave for college. We know the experience of changing jobs or even acquiring a new role in our existing situation. We see it when buying a new home. We mark it with every birthday. Heck, we even get a little nervous when trying a new brand of ketchup!
While we are currently noticing warp changes in government and wondering about their impact on our daily lives, we see things change in the normal course of events, especially with things like new technology.
Artificial intelligence has many people on edge. Everything from nightmarish cyborg assassins like in the “Terminator,” or Hal of “2001: A Space Odessey,” or future family robots like “M3gan.” And, that’s just the scary fun stuff.
On more immediate and relevant concerns, we worry about AI taking over our jobs, invading our privacy, or robbing our children of an education because of its ability to research and draft papers quicker and better than most humans … thus, our children end up getting an education on how to instruct a computerized entity and not how to think, analyze, evaluate, and create innovative outcomes.
These issues create concerns about our relevance as well as that of the future of humankind. That’s a pretty heavy burden to carry, and if overblown, can cause intense mental distress.
That said, we are living in one of the most exciting times in history. With new potential comes adaptation and a huge step out of our comfort zone. Yet, we know that change is a give-and-take process. With everything we gain, we must make room by letting some things go, or at the very least, changing how we utilize these current resources or circumstances. By eliminating the old, we can begin to imagine the new; in imagining the new, we can start to see possibilities that we hadn’t previously considered or even imagined … and those possibilities can be amazing.
The bottom line is that we are all engaging in new directions, from digital, government, career, medical advances, communications, and even to how we shop. Change … it’s not coming, it’s already here, it’s been here for a while, and we can use it to make our lives more productive, engaging, and meaningful, leading to a new level of happiness.
Rather than envisioning the worst, imagine the best. What would we do with a life that is enhanced by modern technology, a government that adapts to our needs, education that is tailored to our unique learning style, and career opportunities that allow us to utilize our greatest talents, while the mundane is all handled by tech? In shifting our mindset, we create a life with the added time to enjoy it all.
Make it happen! Less stress, more joy! Let’s make February the best month of our lives!
James van Beek is the Eagle County sheriff. You can reach him at james.vanbeek@eaglecounty.us.
