On the difficulties of change

Recently, I ranted on my Facebook about how difficult change was, and for some reason a few people liked it. So I just decided to expound a bit more on the subject, since this is MY Medium wall?, page?, feed?, post?…well, whatever this is, it’s mine.

Back to the point.

One of the most difficult things about change is that inherent in every change is an acknowledgement that the ‘now’ is no longer ‘good enough’. Now, I’ve found that there’s several reasons why ‘now’ is no longer good enough.

• Maybe it worked in the past, but the circumstances changed and so you must find a new solution. Hopeful, but in reality probably not. Unless you happen to be in a rapidly changing semi-chaotic environment (read: stock market or startup).
• Maybe it was a good idea, but it was executed poorly (it happens often enough to merit a category of its own, and the details of this probably merits multiple posts).
• Maybe it never worked, but you were deluded into believing that it did, or at least was trying to find out whether it worked or not, until inescapable evidence was revealed to the contrary (read: shoved in your face until you admitted the truth or died from asphyxiation).

In my experience, I’ve found that it’s a combination of the three in different measures at different times. Unfortunately, the last case is usually more prevalent than the previous 2 cases, and so it usually takes me either a kind objection from a good friend, a strong reprimand from my boss, or a loving intervention through an act of God.

But whatever the reason was, there comes a moment when I have to look in the mirror, take a deep breath, and say: “I was wrong about A, B and C”. For me, it takes a lot of courage, a lot of humility, a lot of gritted/ground teeth to get to that moment.

And every single time it happens, it sucks.

But after the whining and moaning and multiple self-incrimination and blaming other people (hopefully all done in the safety of some kind of sound/shockproof closet), there is a liberating moment where I can say, “hey, because A, B and C failed, now I can try D, E, and F or G, H, and I or any and every other combination that I can imagine that has the highest probability of success”. And of course, be prepared to be wrong again.

What helps me move past the pain of acknowledgement into the more productive realm of future-planning and present-execution is separating my personal identity from my work.

If my identity is the cumulative result of my work, then every success makes me great and every failure demeans me as a person. But I’m not the sum of my works. I’m much more than that. The results of my work is actually a pretty minimal (meaningful, but minimal) component in the entire architecture of my being.

And it helps my thinking if I start seeing everything as a big, grand experiment. An experiment that is being bankrolled by me (time, effort and resources) and other, well meaning people (family, friends, employer, client), but an experiment nonetheless.

And the purpose of every experiment is to move forward — not necessarily to prove a thesis, but even disproving a thesis is a meaningful step forward (despite what the academia might tell you). And so if every step that is made is a step forward, on the eventual process of life, then the acknowledgement of the failure that is now necessitating change is no longer personal, but procedural.

And moreover, thinking about things as an experiment can help in assigning a probability of failure to the experiment (a completely new and revolutionary method of making instant ramen? 70% chance of failure) and increase/decrease this possibility in my mind to control the impact of the possible eventuality of failure.

And the great thing about all this is that you do get to build a (relatively) thicker skin. I mean, it never seems to become easy. But I have been able to build up better mechanisms to process the pain of failure faster and emerge from the other side. Of course, the magnitude of the failure works in the opposite direction, so it does become a case of building up the endurance to take punishment better. But overall, it does get better over time.

Edison wasn’t embarassed to discover the filament for his light bulbs after 10,000 tries…he simply said he found 10,000 ways that don’t work. May we also have the courage, the humility, the fortitude and the patience to be willing to fail…and try, try again until we get it right in the end.

Of course, until ‘right’ no longer works. Then it’s back to step 1.

C’est la vie.