Change is Good! Well, Not So Much Anymore

“All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward.” Ellen Glasgow

For most of my life I've been a changoholic. Couldn’t get enough of it. Here are some examples:

Immediately after college, in 1986, I took my first job in Cleveland, a city I had never visited prior to my job interview, and where I was acquainted with no one. I just needed a change from Maine (which I returned to three years later).

In the year 2000, my wife and I decided to uproot our family from our hometown and move from northern Maine to southern Maine, just because we needed a change in scenery.

After 25 years of marriage, we have our fifth house up for sale, and are searching for our sixth. The longest time that we have lived in any house is six years. We renovate the houses to the point where they suit us perfectly, and then something changes.

When I was a working professional, one of the most universally dreaded events was a reorganization. But I loved reorganizations. There was usually something significantly wrong with the status quo business plan, and I always viewed these changes as an opportunity for us to get it right. Furthermore, reorganizations allowed me to put my mark on the new business strategy, instead of being constrained by an inherited one.

I could (try to) impress you with a psychological analysis of why I have always craved change, but that is not my point here. My point here is that my appetite for change has, well, changed.

Whereas change used to fuel my very existence, today I would be thrilled if nothing ever changed again. In the past, change delivered a mixture of the good and the bad, but on balance I felt it was a positive force. Change still brings a mixture of the good and the bad, but is now heavily slanted toward the bad.

Recent good change

1. Son graduated from high school
2. Daughter graduated from college

Recent bad change

1. Never mind. I won’t bore you with the litany of changes MS has ushered in.

Potential future good change

1. More weddings, graduations, and babies coming from our family's younger generation
2. Me winning the lottery

Potential future bad change

1. I won’t frighten/alarm/sadden you with a list of the changes MS has in store for me in the coming months and years.
2. Sarah Palin as President

I often sit here and think, “If the disease progression would just stop, I could be satisfied with a life like this.” After all, it’s not the devil I know that frightens me.

But what a self-indulgent wish this is. Doesn’t the cancer patient or the ALS patient feel the same way? Don’t the elderly? Doesn’t everybody to some extent? Since each day brings us closer to our inevitable exit, isn’t the desire for time to slow down or stop simply a manifestation of our survival instinct? When I begin to travel down this well-worn path I try to snap myself back to reality, and live in the present instead. I have mixed and temporary success with the snapping-back, but I keep working at it.

So how has change been treating you lately? Do you embrace it, dread it, or do you just roll with the punches?

Have I betrayed my childhood self? (redux)

I first published this post in 2010.  Today I dusted it off, spruced it up a bit, and again present it for your reading pleasure:
 
I can still remember the questions I pondered as a child (I was a frequent and vivid ponderer):

What will my job be when I grow up?
Who will I marry? (Will she be hot?)
Where will I live?
What will my kids be like?
Will I grow old?  How old?

I also recall some of the promises I made to myself as a child:

I will let my kids stay up as late as they want to.
I will eat dessert whenever I want to.
I will become rich.
I will become famous.
Nobody will ever tell me what to do.

I didn’t keep any of those promises.

Less evolved Mitch (Mitch of only a few years ago) sometimes felt guilty about failing to live up to my childhood expectations. More evolved Mitch understands that I hold no obligation to my childhood self. Screw him. He didn't know what he was talking about. He was just a kid. Granted, he was a darn cute kid, but a kid nonetheless.

We sometimes treat our childhood dreams with undue reverence.  These dreams are necessary from a developmental perspective (in order to become an adult, one must first envision it), but they should not be construed as a blueprint for life. Our juvenile aspirations are misguided because children cannot grasp life’s complexities, and don’t appreciate its subtleties. The degree of wisdom necessary to do so is acquired later in life, if ever.

In retrospect, these are the questions I should have pondered as a child:


Will I be lucky enough to find real love? (I was)
Will I have my health? (I did for the first 38 years)
Will I lead a happy and contented life? (I have)
Will I have a fulfilling career? (not really, but it paid the bills)
Will I be a good person? (with some exceptions, I think I have been)

And these are the promises I should have made to myself when I was a kid:

I will not presume that life owes me anything; any positive experiences beyond being born are simply frosting on the cake.

I will be a lifelong learner, a rational and open-minded thinker, and a candid, yet polite, communicator.

I will not waste precious resources on jealousy, hatred, or revenge.

I will try to do my small part to improve the human condition.

I will not blindly adhere to hollow societal norms.   
I will live each day as if it will be my last.
I will be true to my family and friends.

I will be reliable and humble.

I will have fun, lots of it. 
Even when life becomes difficult, I will try to persevere.

If I had made these promises to myself, could I have kept them? Let’s just say that at 47 years of age, I’m still a work in progress.

If young Mitch could have seen the future, I’m quite certain that he would have been disappointed with what he saw. But young Mitch wasn’t smart enough to appreciate what a good life looks like. How could he have? He was just a kid.

The Parable of the Farmer and His Four Sons

Once upon a time, in a faraway land called Happy Valley, there lived a good and honest sharecropper and his four capable sons, who were actually two sets of mirror-image twins. One set of twins was particularly sturdy and strong. They could stand up to anything. These brothers were so connected to one another that many considered them to be joined at the hip. The other twins were less strong, but more agile, and were best suited for complex farm chores. They worked hand-in-hand to assist the Farmer.

All of a sudden one of the particularly sturdy sons began to feel strange. He grew tired and listless. About a year later his sturdy twin began to feel the same way. They had each become lame. They continued to get worse and worse until after a number years they could not help out with the farm work at all. Luckily, the other set of twins remained healthy and used their agility to keep the farm moving.

About five years later, one of the agile twins began to feel weak, just like the sturdy twins had years earlier. And sure enough, after one more year, the other agile twin followed suit. Everybody slowly got worse over time. Today, the formerly sturdy and strong twins, who could stand up to anything, can't move at all and must be carried everywhere. One of the agile twins can still move around a little bit but can't accomplish much. That leaves all of the farm work for the healthier agile twin, but he is getting more lame every day.

So now the Farmer is relying on the semi-lame, agile twin and the goodwill of the farmer’s (lovely) wife to fertilize the soil, plant the seeds, and harvest the crops…of life.

The End (for now)

Cast of characters:

The sturdy twins – my left leg and my right leg
The agile twins – my left hand and my right hand
The Farmer – me

The moral of the story:

When things start to fall apart, you better make the most out of your remaining assets, and you better have a steadfast support system. “Buying the Farm” is to be avoided until all other avenues have been thoroughly exhausted.

Now that you’re privy to the subtext, feel free to go back and re-read The Parable of the Farmer and His Four Sons. It draws the arc of my life story these past ten years.