Lee's blog: Change Happens

Did anyone else blink and realise that it’s October? Since my last blog on the joy of the summer of which I am still basking in the afterglow I have found that summer rushed into back to school ,this rushed into back to school illness sharing and now we are already scheduling Halloween. In fact, just yesterday my daughter asked if she could start her “He who should not be named until December”list. Theres a lot going on!

A phrase I have heard a few times in this season is “Two things can be true at the same time”. In psychology speak it’s called Dialetics and it is used as a way of explaining how things that at first seem contradictory can co-exist – my absolute favourite being “You can be doing the best you can AND you can try harder”.

My own co-existing truth is this I love everything about change AND I dislike almost everything about change.

In my personal life at least I love the changes that flow in the year, the gradual fade from spring to summer, the seemingly overnight leap from Summer to Autumn. I love to change up the house and my habits to embrace this. My very basic self loves the change from an Iced Latte to a Pumpkin Spiced Latte, switching out the home, putting the garden to bed for the winter. In work I feel my job changes daily, the very nature of the role is one of problem solving and making effective changes. If it stayed the same I would hate it and paradoxically this constant change is what has kept me in the same company for so many many years thus avoiding change.

I write this coming out of a summer of change, big and small within our life, my daughter moving to the senior school, my husband taking on a new equally exciting and challenging position and some changes within my own role that while not transformational are still not set. We then mix in changes in routines, changes in extra curricular timings and changes in childcare timings for our youngest. And that’s just the four of us! I imagine this is reflective of any busy household. Its brilliant to see how the changes have all been successful and the chatter at dinnertime of all the new parts of our lives is evidence that change is nearly always needed.

And then again there is the part I hate - there were days in September where I had to write out hourly reminders for which child was where and my central nervous system was on high alert for a phone call to say I had forgotten my child and they would be permanently scared with that one memory of waiting at the school gates for me not to show up! The changes leave me off kilter and on edge and it takes me time to recenter.

When feeling off kilter I do what any normal elder millennial does and I consult google who happily tells me truths about change and calms that nervous system once again:

"They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom." - Confucius

“A ship is always safe at shore but that is not what it's built for” – Einstein

"If you do not change direction, you may end up where you are heading." - Lao Tzu

Lee is a mum, accountant, coffee lover and sometimes runner. She is married, has two young girls and works mostly remotely for a London based bank.