It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way

Interrupting my jump to conclusions

In last week’s note I wrote a single sentence that described a scenario that can prevent change.

“We can be so attached to our pre-dispositions that we cannot see life being any different.”

Leading up to my burnout in 2019, I had trained to be accepting of circumstances, fast to adapt, and yet maintain my intended direction and goals, even my pre-dispositions and habits. I rarely said no. Instead, like a well-trained improviser, I would say, “Yes, and…” I learned to swim well in the cultural streams I was born and raised in. I learned to hit the mark of my own and external expectations. I learned to hold dear to my inner life, especially in light of an outer life that seemed to prove less kind or loving than I had hoped. That is a harsh statement, I admit. However, coming from a childhood in which I was immersed in and overflowing with love, almost any other situation, including that of growing up,  felt like a loss of some sort.

It isn’t a surprise, looking back now, that I bobbed and weaved through my professional and personal life until I hit my wall. I was comfortable with bobbing and weaving. It felt like dancing to really good music. But when the music kept playing, and I had less and less to give, I didn’t know how to stop dancing. If the music kept playing, I kept dancing…kept moving…kept working…kept doing…kept giving. Until I had no more to give.

A Cycle

My acceptance of “the way things are” was so quick I didn’t realize I was even making the choice of acceptance. I just got to work. I never questioned if the things that were in place – the contract, the relational dynamics, the underlying assumptions – were good. I just accepted them as the circumstances of the next steps of my journey. I approached the circumstances simply as the world in which I would be working out the worldview I held. Could I learn about, experience, and contribute to the realization of God’s love through Christ in this place and with these people? That was my question.

My cycle seemed to be this: I would jump in to any given circumstance with my full self – all my own resources and whatever I had access to – and then at some moment recognize that something was amiss. Something in the contract, the dynamic, or the underlying assumptions was not lining up with the work at hand – what I thought I was there to do. At that point I would know no other choice but to make a stand. That stand led to my departure from the situation more often than not. Sometimes I would initiate the choice, sometimes it would be others who decided. Either way, the outcome would be a separation.

Acceptance and Change

Acceptance is a powerful choice. It says that we will not engage in efforts to change whatever has been accepted. This could be directed inwardly – towards our individual habits, actions, pre-dispositions – or outwardly – towards relational dynamics, social norms, and institutional structures. When we accept “the way things are” we surrender to their power over us. We give up on the hope of things being different. For anyone who has attempted to engage in the work of change, whether personal or organizational, you know how much effort such work takes. It is quite tempting to surrender and give up on hope. It is quite easy to accept the way things are, and nothing more.

As I emerged from my burnout. I began to clearly recognize many things that I had accepted that I didn’t like. I didn’t think they were right. I didn’t want to accept them anymore. I didn’t believe I had to. These were very specific things in me and the immediate world around me. I could name them. The first step in engaging in the work of change for me was recognizing, naming, and not accepting the habit, thought, action, or cultural norm that I wanted to attempt to change. I believed that I could change, and that if I could change, the things around me could change as well. Even more so, I gave myself the permission to make my own choices in response to the reaction of the world around me to my new approach – my lack of acceptance with the status quo.

It is important, to note that engaging in individual change and organizational change are similar yet different endeavors. Individual change engages all the parts of the person – thoughts and feelings, personality, body and mind and soul. All that is good and evil in the inner world of the person comes to bear as the individual works toward personal change. Some changes come easily while others come only after an inner war ensues or a lot of effort and time have been spent. Organizational change engages all the parts of the inner person for everyone involved in the organization – be it a two-person relationship, a family, neighborhood, community, small business, or corporation. Additionally, organizational change engages the social dynamics that have been practiced as regular in the context of the organization. All the things for which people would say, “That’s just how we do things here.”

There is good and evil in every part. That’s a lot to deal with to bring about change. It’s not surprising that tools of manipulation and imposition or the decision to just give up can come to bear in such endeavors more than organic, fundamental, and sustaining transformations towards change. The latter is much harder (time and resource intensive) than the former.

It doesn’t have to be this way.

As I began my own journey towards change, I began to use a simple phrase on myself. Something that would quickly interrupt my habit of acceptance – my desire to just get to work. Anytime I found myself working from a point of assumption that would lead towards a less than desirable situation, I would bring this phrase to mind. When my personal context reinforced a sense of personal failure, when I felt continually overburdened at work or in personal relationships, when I began to think that things would never change, I would simply remind myself…

“It doesn’t have to be this way…”

I would be stopped in my tracks. It doesn’t? No, it doesn’t. Well then, what needs to happen for things to change? Very quickly I would be slammed with a whole list of things that would have to happen. Financial situations that would need to be different. Relationships that would need to shift. Entire contexts that would need renovating. Impossibilities, all of them. I would hit a second wall and feel stuck. Instead of staying there, fighting my thoughts, figuratively hitting my head against a wall, I began asking more specific questions.

What is one thing that I can do to see if this one thing can be different? What is the smallest thing that I can do to see if this one thing can change? Who is one person I can ask one question to see if this one thing can change?

These questions began to lead me towards fissures in the workings of my mind and my worldview. It was a wonderful experience of destruction to bear witness to unhealthy habits of thought being interrupted. These habits fought back, as if fighting for their life. When they did, I would kindly respond, “Thank you, but it doesn’t have to be this way.”

Habits of thought lead to habits of actions. My actions were fast – faster than my thoughts at times. Before I could get my new phrase in, I found myself having to add a word to interrupt my body’s desire to immediately move.

Wait.

As I received offers for work, reviewed my own ideas for projects, looked at the relationships I engaged in, and my own expectations, goals, and output – a potpourri I was drowning in at the time – I would say, “Wait. It doesn’t have to be this way.”

What did I really want? What would be really good? Let’s ask that question. Let’s think about what I can do in that direction. I’ve lost work, said no to projects, taken time to reassess the relationships I’m in, and reviewed my own expectations, goals, and output. All on account of this one phrase, and the specific questions that flowed from it.

Sharing the statement

This seemed to work so well on me, that I started testing it out with others. In the course of conversation, I would hear someone speak from a point of assumption, essentially saying, “that’s just the way it is.” In that moment, I would try to slip this non-confrontational response: “You know, it doesn’t have to be that way.” The flow of conversation would stop. I would wait. The seconds that passed would feel like eternities. Sometimes the conversation would move in the direction of curiosity. Then the questions would come. How could it not be this way? What would have to happen for it not to be this way? How many people would have to change for it not to be this way? What social thoughts and actions would have to change? What cultural norms would have to shift? How much resistance would come at the moment of trying to change? Where would the resistance come from?

The battle that can ensue on account of change is real. The massive effort often needed to change is real. The potential benefit from change is real. The possible burden of leading a particular change is real. On one’s own, such things might feel like impossibilities. They often are. Even to this, I have used the phrase, “It doesn’t have to be this way.” As we engage in this kind of re-thinking there may be people who come around us. Seemingly random resources that will find their way to us.

Indeed, this is all transformed and more specific for someone who believes in a living God and is venturing to follow Jesus Christ. The battle, effort, benefit, and burden are all things that we walk through with God. We are led through them by following Jesus. We are protected, strengthened, given a lasting vision of joy, and our burdens are lightened on account of this supernatural relationship. In reality, it is not a path without challenges – we can look at the testimony of Jesus’s own life as witness to this truth – but it is a very different kind of endeavor when we work towards change in ourselves and the world around us with God.