So, if you use Facebook, you know they changed their layout yet again. (Side note: what would it be like to work for a company that can change what they want, when they want, without the trappings of a regulatory body? Hard to fathom.) From the comments of many of my friends last week, it seemed a catastrophic injustice had befallen the citizens of this online community—how dare they modify the way we see our favorite web page! I don't have any real data on this, but from my random friend sampling, I saw that about 50% of people had a comment about the new layout, and the majority of those folks HATED it. Not just disliked, or found inconvenient, but LOATHED.
I don't claim to handle change any better than the next person—in fact, I myself have recently had bouts of extreme discontent about small changes. For example, the other day, I drove into the parking lot at work MUCH earlier than I usually arrive, and I was thrilled with the idea that I would be able to park in a choice parking spot (known as "gravy" in my college days). You can imagine my horror and disbelief when I saw that the whole first two tiers of the parking lot were BLOCKED, and I and the other early birds had to park in spots usually reserved for the late-comers. It was nothing short of torturous.
At my job, and I suppose in any corporate situation, change happens often. The management decides on a new direction, and the underlings are shuffled about to accommodate the upheaval. Then, just as everyone gets settled into the new scenario, things are shaken up yet again, and we have to adjust anew. In my first three years at "the corporation," I changed desks twelve times, each time packing up my belongings and resettling at a new space, where I had to reconfigure my wall hangings and make the gray walls feel a little more inviting. At first this was disconcerting, but after a while I developed a system, and then my moves became quicker and easier. Of course, just as I got used to the idea that moving was inevitable, I joined a team that has left me in the same desk for years at a time.
One huge move was the transition between two work "campuses." I was originally working a short 15 minute drive from home and rarely ran into traffic. The company reorganized (not a new concept) and picked us all up and sent us miles away, across a river, and through much busier traffic. The atmosphere for those who lived near me was indignant, but for those who were going to be working closer to home, it was ecstatic.
Aaron and I have been working on "cleaning out closets"—he doesn't know it, but it's one of my Happiness Resolutions for January. (I sucked him in to the project almost without his knowledge—but I think it has been a good thing.) He likes stuff. He has a lot of it, and he loves it. I am not really a "stuff" person. I enjoy throwing things out—it makes me feel free and more clear-headed, but it stresses him out. I tried to say to him as I proposed the idea of getting rid of clutter, "it feels so GREAT to have less stuff."
I'm trying to understand more his attachment to his stuff and not give him such a hard time. I suppose part of the issue is that my memories are tied more to an overall feeling of a time or place, rather than a specific picture or piece of paper. My favorite memories are hard to describe, because they don't really involve specifics I can point to. One of the most beautiful places I've ever been is what used to be a church summer camp, where my family would go in the fall with our church for a weekend. It would be cold, and we would sleep in sleeping bags with heated blankets in wooden camp cabins. The bathroom was a separate building, and there were bugs and spiders on the concrete floors, and the water was always cold. We would sing songs and play games and roam the empty camp trails, and race other kids through the emptied out swimming pool.
There was an outdoor chapel, built on the edge of a bluff that looked out across the rolling Ozark hills in southern Missouri. We would go there early in the morning on Sundays, and everything would be frosty and quiet, and I can remember sitting there in silence as an elementary school kid, watching a hawk drift back and forth off the edge of the bluff in the cold morning air. A picture can't really do it justice, because the smells and sounds and sights all contributed to the peaceful feeling of being with loved ones in such a great place are the important pieces of the memory. Maybe we made crafts those weekends when I was 7 and 8 and 9, but if I kept them they wouldn't do anything to enhance that memory in my mind. I'm sure my parents have pictures of the place, but seeing them doesn't change anything about what I can recall of those days (and in fact, may bring my fantastical memories about the place back to a more realistic and less enjoyable cadence).
It's hard for me to imagine that any thing that I could hold in my hands would give me anything remotely as great as that memory, so I tend to put little value on things, but I need to remember that not everyone's mind works the way mine does, so it isn't fair of me to say that things don't hold value—they just don't do so for me.
Point is, change happens. Whether it's Facebook or work, or a relationship or an addition to a family, it happens. I doubt that most people would really be satisfied if everything remained EXACTLY the same for years on end. I personally crave a little excitement, and so I shouldn't be so adverse to that excitement just because it feels a little more like stress.
Bonus to moving to the new work campus: I get to wear jeans every day. And I got used to it. (And I moved, so the drive isn't nearly so awful.) Following one of my Happiness Comandments, I'm learning to "Let go." Things have a way of working out, whether you like it or not, and change becomes habit until we have to change again.
