Carole Cadwalladr, ‘Vincent Deary: ‘Are you living the life you want to lead?’
At the age of 40 Vincent Deary jacked in his job as an NHS psychotherapist, sold his house in south London, moved to Edinburgh and locked himself in a small room for two years to write a book. Or, more accurately, to think about writing a book. He spent the first year mostly writing Post-it notes. By the fifth year, having turned 45, he finally finished it and called it How to Live…
…What comes across most strongly in How to Live is just how bloody difficult it is to change. Or, as is more often the case, to handle change. Deary had a choice – to stay in London or to go – but many of those he cites in the book don’t have a choice. Change has been thrust upon them – partners leave, work dries up, people die. “There are many ways our worlds can end,” he writes in the book. “It may start as a distant rumour, a noise outside your small world, or an unexpected intrusion within it… sooner or later your current world will change, the present season will end.”
And even the perfect people of Facebook, with smiling kids and sunny skiing holidays, are not immune. “They will fall for their lover, their dog will die, they’ll have to move house, they’ll go bankrupt, they’ll die, they’ll age and if they stay the same their circumstances will change so their old responses won’t produce the same response from the environment. So even if they stay the same, that will mean change.” The problem is that we are “habit machines”. We suffer from “character sclerosis”. “Left to [our] own devices, the result will be the downhill slide of a life dictated by whatever happened last, by happenstance and habit.”
Read entire column at The Guardian
For some change is so difficult/painful and is to be avoided at all cost. And for others no-change is as equally difficult/painful. It is one’s balance in life to know how to move gracefully into change at the appropriate times.
Yes, well stated. And there lies the conundrum…
yes, we’re habit machines. Change is the most certain thing in life and to practice being ok with discomfort that comes with any change is the key. Great post!
So true Kristi. And that discomfort (or perhaps lack of willpower) sits at the core of the problem.
fear is the greatest deterrent to change. only when we accept that everything has a season, and embrace that, will we stop worrying.
Yes. And what a tough hill to climb that is.
it is –
Very reminiscent of Gail Sheehy’s ‘Passages’ – though more beautifully wrought.
Laughing. Thank you again for testing me early in the morning (shining a spotlight on all the things I haven’t read or don’t know). I looked it up. Interesting…
Gail Sheehy: Passages – Predictable Crises in Adult Life
She has just written another book “Daring” – and was on NPR yesterday. I probably wouldn’t have made the connection if I hadn’t heard it. Let’s not even discuss how much I don’t know – you’re a veritable encyclopedia in comparison – believe me. (Did I just totally date myself my even using the word ‘encyclopedia’?)
Laughing. Encyclopedia. Yes. You have dated yourself.
“Habit machines” indeed. Have you ever watched a horse walk around a ring, or make it’s way back to the barn? Same track, worn deep. That’s how I feel sometimes. And yet, as much as I love my ‘warm old bathrobe’ of security and routine, I still try to shake myself out of the groove now and again. Last time I did it in a big way, I lost almost 20 lbs. and nearly gave myself an ulcer, but I digress… 😉 Change can be painful, bewildering, terrifying, and if you’re lucky, liberating…. 🙂
20 lbs. You don’t have 5 to give. Come on. (And I agree, change can be discombobulating)