Change is in the Air

Sometimes we crave change. Other times we dread it. Either way, we can't escape it. Here's how to live with it—and learn from it.

By Chris Colin

Anna's boyfriend of five years broke up with her, she was devastated. He had given every indication that he was committed to a shared life, right down to the proposed names for the children they'd planned to have. When he admitted he couldn't deliver on any of their dreams, Anna (not her real name) did her best to move on. She painted her apartment, recycled her furniture, and swept out every reminder of him in a determined preparation for a new phase of life.

But deep down, she couldn't accept the change. "I kept hoping a coconut would fall on his head and he'd come to his senses," she recalls. She raged at the upending of the life she'd envisioned. She sabotaged new relationships by comparing them to life with her ex. For several years she fought the reality of his departure with all she had, and in the process shut herself off from new opportunities, from happiness, from peace. "I was so in the thick of it, I couldn't see any doors opening. I was just banging into all these closed doors."

It wasn't until she experienced the equally life-transforming change of a cross-country move—a change she welcomed—that Anna realized the value of taking change in stride. "If you're willing to accept the good changes," she says, "you have to be willing to accept the bad, because it's all part of the same dynamic."

Erik, it would seem, already knew that. While working a hodgepodge of construction jobs, he had realized he needed a change and started rethinking things. "I was driving by Casper's Hot Dogs, and all of a sudden it hit me: I wanted to do architecture," he says. It took months of strategizing, but a major life warp was set in motion. Both Erik and his partner, Melissa, made plans to become grad students. Their house in California would be rented out, the relationship made long distance, as Erik moved to Philadelphia for the University of Pennsylvania's prestigious architecture program. A few months later, Melissa would head to New York's Pratt School of Art and Design. Erik was thrilled. After a period of professional uncertainty, there was a plan.

And so, after moving east, Erik accepted the impossible hours, the sleep deprivation, and the separation from Melissa with resolve. All told, his big life change was chugging along nicely—right up to the moment a bigger one sneaked up from behind. He'd been gone about six weeks when Melissa called to say she was pregnant.

Erik greeted the news with joy. He didn't kick and scream about the complete disruption of his life. He simply decided to come back to California, start a family, and leave Philadelphia behind. His hard-earned blueprints had been ripped to shreds—by something wonderful, to be sure—but ripped to shreds all the same. And yet he was OK.

Make Change

So, how is it that when life is spun around by circumstances, benign or otherwise, some people flail, while others sail? Why do some of us wallow in that place where we're so shocked and unhappy about an unexpected turn of events that we resist reality and find ourselves mired in bitterness or fear or hopelessness? Instead of accepting change with grace, we dig in our heels and suffer through each day of things not being what we think they should be. What's the secret to riding each new wave gracefully—regardless of whether it deposits you gently on the beach or wallops you down to the seafloor?

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