Change and Uncertainty

I've been thinking a lot about change lately, both personally and professionally. At home, I am trying to figure out what is next in my life. At work, the team I am on is proposing a new project. Both involve determining if the status quo is reasonable. If not, what is next? What are the costs and benefits of making a change? We will be better or worse off as a result of the change?

1. The Status Quo -- Is everything fine? Do we need to change?

2. Cost of Change -- Usually with any change, there is an initial, upfront cost, whether it is financial, emotional or both. We hope that with the change, the cost will even out and be better than the status quo.

3. Benefits of Change -- When we make a change, we hope that things will be better. Mostly like, the benefits of the change won't be reaped until later, as the change itself causes disruption thereby reducing the benefits.

4. Hell -- This is where the costs exceed the status quo and the benefits are less. We hope this doesn't happen. This can be tragedy, though, where something bad happened that we didn't like and now things are worst. Think of kids initially sent to Wilderness or Therapeutic Boarding school. Some of those kids might have been happy getting high or drunk every day, or enjoyed watching Vines instead of going to school. Any change for those kids might be seen as bad. At first. There is an expression: When you are going through Hell, just keep going. If this is your life, then perhaps another change is in order.

5. Unicorn Land -- This might be how we imagine change might be -- all good, no downside.

The hard part of all of this is that we don't know how it is going to end up. We can plan and decide and figure. We can make our best estimates, look at past experiences, make a well informed decision, and then hope for the best.