Someone is sitting in my seat at church.
Okay, technically it is not my seat. I did not purchase it. There is no plaque with my name on it. And I am fairly certain no one at church has been assigned the responsibility of keeping the third row available for Amy Nelson.
But still.
What are they doing in my seat?
Please tell me I’m not the only person who has had this reaction.
We humans are funny about change. We can talk about being open to new things and growing as people, but then the grocery store moves the peanut butter to a different aisle and suddenly we have opinions. 😂 The same thing happens when our phone updates and a button we’ve used for three years moves somewhere else, or a meeting that has always been on Tuesday gets moved to Wednesday. And please don’t change a process at work that was working perfectly fine, thank you very much.
None of these things is particularly important, but I’ve noticed how quickly Why did they change that? can come out of my mouth. Apparently resistance to change doesn’t always involve digging in our heels over some enormous life decision. Sometimes it shows up in the very ordinary things we’ve simply gotten used to having a certain way.
We Like Knowing How Things Work
In my last post, I wrote about why change can be hard even when it’s something we wanted. One reason is that familiarity gives us information. We know what to expect and how to operate without having to think very hard about it.
That’s actually one of the great things about routines.
I like routines. I don’t want to spend fifteen minutes every morning deciding when to drink my coffee or where to keep my toothbrush. There are plenty of things in life that work better when we find a good way to do them and keep doing them that way.
The problem isn’t that we like what’s familiar.
The problem is that familiar can easily become the way it should be.
And we don’t always notice when that happens.
I may have a perfectly good reason for sitting in the third row every Sunday. Maybe I can see better from there. Maybe that’s where my friends sit. Maybe I just like it.
But if sitting in the fourth row makes me irritated for the first fifteen minutes of worship, the chair probably isn’t the issue anymore.
How Do You Know When Routine Has Become Resistance to Change?
I don’t think most of us walk around thinking, I’m resistant to change.
We’re more likely to think the new way is unnecessary, inconvenient, poorly timed or just not as good as the old way.
And sometimes we’re right.
New isn’t automatically better.
But I’ve noticed there are a few reactions worth paying attention to.
- Do I dismiss a new idea before I’ve really considered it?
- Do I keep explaining why the old way was better without giving the new way much of a chance?
- Does a relatively small change create a surprisingly big reaction in me?
- Am I looking for an actual problem—or am I mostly annoyed that something isn’t happening the way I’m used to?
None of those reactions automatically means we’re resistant to change. Sometimes we have good reasons for preferring the old way. But they can help us notice when we’re evaluating a change on its merits—and when we’re mostly reacting because someone messed with something familiar.
Different Isn’t the Same as Worse
I think this may be one of our quickest reactions to change. Something is different, and before we’ve had much time to experience it, we’ve already decided whether we like it. And, if you’re anything like me, the initial verdict isn’t always favorable. 😂
Of course, sometimes a change really is worse. The old process may have worked better, the previous version may have been easier, or someone may simply have made a bad decision. But feeling awkward or frustrated at first isn’t enough information to know that yet.
After all, we’re comparing something we’ve done dozens, hundreds or maybe even thousands of times with something we’ve barely tried. The old way has familiarity working in its favor, while the new way still requires us to think about things that used to come automatically.
So maybe we don’t have to decide quite so quickly. We can dislike the awkwardness of doing something differently and still give it a little time before deciding the old way was better.
You Can Love Routine Without Being Ruled by It
I have no plans to give up routines.
In fact, I’ll probably continue sitting in the same general area at church whenever I can. There’s nothing spiritually superior about choosing a different chair every Sunday just to keep myself flexible.
But I do want to notice when a preference has become something more.
I want to be able to say, I liked the way we used to do this without automatically concluding, therefore we should still be doing it that way. I want to enjoy familiarity without requiring it.
Because the little changes probably tell us something about how we respond to the bigger ones.
So here’s my challenge for both of us this week. Pay attention to the next time you catch yourself thinking:
Why did they change that?
Before deciding whether the change is good or bad, ask one more question:
Is there actually something wrong with this—or is it simply not what I’m used to?
And if someone is sitting in your seat at church this Sunday, apparently we both have homework.