Change - 005
“Then and Now” Photograph by Peter Perry
Hey {{First Name}},
Earlier this month, I took a trip to my childhood home outside Chicago. Spending the weekend sleeping in my childhood bedroom alongside my wife and daughter was a surreal experience. I laid in bed (ok, the pull-out couch now in that room) thinking to myself that so much has changed since I called this bedroom mine.
But then something else happened.
The next morning at the breakfast table, I got a flashback to being 10. My dad was reading the paper, my brother was waking up an hour later than everyone else. My mom was pouring her coffee and asking us all questions too intense for that time of morning. Nothing has changed in 20 years. We’re all the same.
I’m curious about that paradox. So this month, I'm exploring the spectrum of change. From “Everything Changes” to “Nothing Changes.”
Happy snacking.
Frog Lifecycle Animation by Anna Taberko
I. Everything Changes
Recently, I had coffee with a friend I hadn’t seen in a while. Although we’ve drifted apart over the last few years, we still make time to reconnect. This time, I thought it was worth addressing our distance. We explored the question “how do we recreate what we had?”
As we started to think about the history of our relationship, it wasn’t possible to simply go back. Our definition of “fun” have changed. Our day-to-day lives now include our marriages and we don’t require the same things from our friends that we did 15 years ago. Our experiences and choices have changed who we are.
We cannot make our relationship what it was without undoing all the change that makes us who we are today.
We cannot make our relationship what it was without acknowledging the choices that have defined our divergent paths.
We cannot make our relationship great again. (We cannot make anything what it was, great or not.)
And rather than try and recreate some version of our past, we can just accept what WAS, happened.
That retreat you went on that changed your life?
That was great. And it’s not going to happen again, no matter how many reunions you plan.
6 summers of camp that shaped who you are?
That was great too. And you don’t have to work there or send your kids there or still wear that bracelet for that impact to be real.
That old relationship that brought meaning into your life but has since drifted?
It was amazing. And what it was doesn’t also have to dictate what it will be.
There’s a synchronicity that happens between people. Timing matters. Sometimes it’s there but not always. When it is–in that retreat, in that summer, in that relationship, meal, marriage, or even in that moment…
take advantage.
Let it happen.
Be in it.
And be grateful.
Because it’s not permanent. Nothing is.
“All of 2010” Photograph Montage by Erik So
II. Making Change
Humans are terrible at understanding time.
At Caveday, we teach that there are two ways of looking at time– chronos, which are the hours-minutes-seconds with which we’re used to measuring time. And then there’s kairos, which is the experience of being IN time. Moments.
Chronos is quantitative. The 45 excruciating minutes until the next rest stop on a road trip– can I hold it that long? The 12 more minutes I have in my workout, pushing my limit. The 3 hungry minutes I have to wait for my coworker’s lunch to heat up before I can use the office microwave. Counting. Every. Second.
Kairos is qualitative. It’s that moment of looking down at Golda in her crib first thing in the morning and she looks back at me and smiles. The time I spend each morning writing and clearing out my brain. Painting and playing music. A dinner party with my closest friends. I’m not looking at the clock. It doesn’t matter how long. I’m lost in time, experiencing without counting.
We understand the passage of time through kairos, not chronos.
Over long periods, we don’t measure time, we only experience time. It might feel like a little or a lot of time has passed. And that depends on the amount of change that happens. The more change, the more it time it feels has passed.
But this experience is not just something we experience passively. We can create change for ourselves in order to create distance.
After a breakup, it’s totally normal to cut or dye hair, start playing guitar, or hang out with new friends.
After a big career rejection, a lot of people will learn a new skill, take new headshots, or switch industries.
After a death, it’s common to clean out the house, rearrange furniture, or even move.
We create change to protect ourselves and feel like more time has passed.
It’s particularly relevant to think about when and where we want to actively create distance in our lives. Career transition. Post-breakup. Crisis of purpose. Sometimes we seek distance. And we can create that feeling by creating change. The more we change, the more we’re distancing ourselves not only from a person or event, but also from our former self.
And transformation can only happen when we’re ready to distance ourselves that former version of ourselves.
Everything Is a Remix
III. Nothing Changes
Betty White has a career in television almost as long as the medium itself. Her first credit appears 80 years ago, in 1939. Her big break came on The Mary Tyler Moore, where she played the cheerful yet spicy Sue Ann Nivens. 10 years later, she played the naive and long-winded widow Rose Nylund in The Golden Girls. 20 years later, she’s Elka in Hot in Cleveland– an outspoken and caring octogenarian, who has been known to smell like Snoop Dogg.
Although she may be described differently over her career, each character is essentially the same. “Cheerful" at 35 might look like naive at 60 or easygoing pothead at 75. “Spicy” might mean sexually voracious at 35. Snarky at 60. And stubborn at 75. She’s not changing, but the context and the age makes a difference.
We are born with a set personality that might be colored by our age or who we’re with. But largely, we’re the same people our entire lives. You don’t have to be an actor to see the same pattern in your own life.
I have always been sentimental. As a kid, it meant needing a souvenir of everything I did–ticket stubs and photo albums. As a teen, I started journaling. As a twenty-something, I would make lists and art projects out of my relationships. In my 30s it means documenting my life in more serious ways, including the email refrigerator, documenting and sharing my thoughts here.
Can you map the traits and personality you’ve had through your life?
How does your 8 year-old personality show up today?
How are you like your teenage self?
When we can acknowledge accept who we are, we can stop trying to do the Sisyphean work of changing ourselves, and just resolve to be ourselves.
IV. Never Change
Signing yearbooks in middle school and high school, it was such a common thing to write “never change.” I know it was always intended to be loving with the implied “you’re perfect the way you are.” But as an upholder and a pleaser, I would sometimes feel accountable to that. To actually, never change. As if that was even possible.
Instead, I’m going to sign off here with the opposite message.
CHANGE FOREVER!
"Change" is letting the world guide you, being influenced by people in your life, allowing learning to open and change your mind.
I hope you got something new from this visit to the refrigerator.
Change forever.
Jake
If someone forwarded you this, sign up for the email refrigerator here.
Because "newsletter" sounds like spam