"There's only one thing worse than too much change", a friend quoted to me recently, "and that's no change at all". I immediately began to visualise victims of injustice, languishing in interminable solitary confinement; citizens living virtually their whole lives under oppressive and death-defying dictators, and those trapped in slavery or violent marriages where escape is riskier than staying. We know, on one level, that the idea of "no change" is an illusion - for even the cells of our body are different from second to second. Nevertheless, there's a definite shudder associated with any stagnant, change-resistant situation - and especially when the only hope for liberation is physical death. Most of us, however, are fortunate enough not to have to endure the extremes of a truly intractable situation. We can usually find reasons to be hopeful, (which is in itself a desire for change and acknowledgement of its possibility). Most of us also like novelty and change to some degree - depending on whether we are so-called neophobes, neophiles or neophiliacs, and it is known that a penchant for novelty can positively impact our sense of wellbeing, health and happiness. So why the ambivalence? So why - I asked myself - do we generally have such an ambivalence toward the idea of change: a kind of love-hate relationship? Normally we don't want "no change"; neither do we want too much. We want some or enough, but what constitutes enough? We say we want it; yet when it begins to manifest, we often sabotage it and pull hard on the reins: "Whoa, I'm not so sure about this. Not so much; not so fast".
