Drastic Change

The following comes from a book called The Ordeal of Change by Eric Hoffer. No words can express better what I am going through right now as I approach the end of Seminary and the dawning of what is next.

"It is my impression that no one really likes the new. We are afraid of it. It is not only as Dostoyevsky put it that "taking a new step, uttering a new word is what people fear most." Even in the slight things the experience of the new is rarely without some stirring of foreboding.

Back in 1936 I spent a good part of the year picking peas. I started out early in January in the Imperial Valley and drifted northward, picking peas as they ripened until I picked the last peas of the season, in June, around Tracy. Then I shifted all the way to Lake County, where for the first time I was going to pick string beans. And I still remember how hesitant I was that first morning as I was about to address myself to the string bean vines. Would I be able to pick string beans? Even the change from peas to string beans had in it elements of fear.

In the case of drastic change the uneasiness is of course deeper and more lasting. We can never be prepared for that which is wholly new. We have to adjust ourselves, and every radical adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem: We undergo a test; we have to prove ourselves. It needs inordinate self-confidence to face drastic change without inner trembling." Ordeal of Change, 3

When I read his experience of picking peas it reminded me of countless tasks that I have been confronted with while managing Swissaire. When I took this job I had no experience. Everything that I did was new to me. Every time that I took on a new task there was always that initial pause, the fear that maybe I could not do what I was attempting to do. The fear of not knowing whether I would be able to repair any subsequent damage if things did not go as I had planned. No matter how many times I had success, whenever I was again confronted with something new, the fear would return.

Hoffer writes that when facing the prospect of drastic change that the uneasiness is deeper and more lasting. That is where I am at now. Adjusting myself to what will come next, and every adjustment is a crisis in self-esteem. Instead of being able to charge ahead with confidence, I find myself frozen, looking deep in to my heart, getting to know intimately again every wart and wrinkle, each one a potential cause for doubt that the future will be bright.

I can't help but think that my experience of countless mini-crises while managing Swissaire were meant somehow to prepare me for this moment.