The Speed of Change and the Need to Breathe

 

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about change. Not the kind jangling in my pocket (though I do miss the weight of real coins), but the big “what’s-next?” kind. I realize that my playlist is stuck in the 70s, but I don’t think my mind is. Frankly, keeping up with it all is exhausting.

Philosophically, I’ve always tried to believe that change is a good thing. The ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus nailed it when he said, “The only constant in life is change.” He also compared life to a river, noting that you can never step into the same one twice. I read a study once that stuck with me: researchers found that people living in places where seasons change—with all the beautiful transitions from fall colors to spring blooms—report higher levels of happiness than those in steady, unchanging climates. I think the lesson is that we’re wired for change and rhythms. We need the turning of the page, the next chapter. We're just not built to stay parked in one spot forever.

But here's the thing I'm wrestling with lately: change is everywhere, and its pace has gone from a steady walk to a full-on sprint. It's hard to catch your breath. The political climate shifts so fast that the news feels like a channel you can’t keep up with. Frankly, it’s alarming.

And in my own backyard—higher education, where I’ve been a student or faculty member for over forty years—the change is profound. It seems the focus has shifted from the "ivory tower" to the "express lane." The drive is to get students in and out as fast as possible, credentials over contemplation. I find this rapid shift alarming, too. Don't even get me started on AI. It's handy, but it's also making us mentally lazy. It reminds me of a study I read about, where programmers using AI assistants actually produced worse code if they blindly followed its suggestions. The tool made them think less critically.

Sometimes I wonder if change is really happening faster now, or if I’m just noticing it more. Psychologists talk about something called psychological flexibility. Basically, the idea is that we stay healthy not by controlling change, but by learning to roll with it. When change comes too fast, our brains get overloaded, and we can feel frustrated or tired. There is nothing wrong with us; we’re just human.

And as we get older, research shows we naturally focus more on what really matters, such as meaningful experiences and relationships, rather than chasing every new thing. So maybe my resistance isn’t to change itself, but to change that never gives me a moment to breathe. That’s why the changing color of the trees outside my window feels so grounding.

Honestly, there’s probably no big point to this blog. I’m just thinking out loud about change, and maybe you’re feeling it, too. If you are, then we're in this together, figuring it out as we go, one day at a time.

 

 

The Great Patio Intervention and the Speed of Life

 

My partner looked at me over her coffee mug last Saturday and said, “We need to get the patio cushions to the basement and the pots into the garage this weekend.”

I just stared at her. Winterize? It seemed ridiculously early. The sun was shining. There were still a few leaves on the trees. So, I stared some more. She stared back.

(Don’t worry. This isn't a blog about a staring contest. But I was winning.)

Finally, I broke the silence. “But I haven’t even brought up the deck rug yet. Or that owl decoration for the table. And the Thermacell is charged. We could actually sit out there tonight without getting bitten by a mosquito.”

She kept staring at me, not in a "have you finally lost your mind?" kind of way, but with a loving, knowing look. It was the same look she gives me when I can't find my keys or when I insist on checking all the locks on the doors a hundred times. She has a way of letting me know I am loved, but also that maybe I am losing a battle with the obvious.

And then a depressing thought hit me: I could barely remember us using the patio all year. Did we even sit out there once?  Surely, we must have.  But when?

I was busy mentally listing everything we never used out here when she beat me to the punch.

“Because it’s November,” she said.

“But we never even used it!” I protested, knowing that I was being oddly defensive about our neglected outdoor space. “The citronella candle is still in the box!”

She took a sip of coffee. “Do you want to go get it now, then? Do you want to bring up the carpet, the owl, and the light for the corner of the deck?”

She asked this as if the answer was so obvious it would snap me back to reality. So I stared at her again.  She stared back.

And then I did what I had to do. I ran the numbers. We have a fire table, but it’s out of propane. Still, I have my old ski pants, an L.L. Bean jacket, and hand warmers. So, yeah, I can bundle up, enjoy a cup of coffee, and feel totally in my element.

And then I remembered I'm the one who puts on a sweater in July if the air conditioning is too high and considers 70 degrees "chilly." My idea of "braving the elements" is going out to get the mail without a jacket.

Right. She's right.

“No,” I conceded. “I guess not. I’ll bring the stuff down.”

So, I began the big haul. With every trip to the basement, I realized I was storing away another "maybe tomorrow." Where did the summer even go? Was there a summer? It felt like I'd blinked in May and opened my eyes to November.

It got me thinking about how fast time slips away. It feels like I was just cleaning these chairs in the spring, and now I'm putting them into hibernation.

This feeling that life accelerates as we age is something almost everyone feels. It reminded me of something Michelle Obama shared about her mother, Marian Robinson, in her final days. Her mother said, "It went so fast." When Michelle asked what, she simply replied, "Life."

She was right. It does.

This isn't just a feeling; there's scientific evidence supporting it. You might have heard of "proportional theory," which proposes that as you age, each year makes up a smaller part of your life. For a 10-year-old, one year is 10% of their life. For a 60-year-old, it's only 1.6%. That makes sense on paper, but psychologists say what really matters is what our brains decide to hold onto.

Think about it: Childhood and young adulthood are full of firsts, like the first bike, first day of school, and first love. These new experiences help our brains create rich, detailed memories. As adults, we tend to fall into routines, such as bringing all the patio cushions to the basement even though summer clearly hasn't arrived yet (!). Since our brains don't need to record every detail of a typical Tuesday, those months and years can blend into one dull period. When we look back, childhood days filled with unique memories seem long and full, while the routine adult years appear to pass quickly. 

  

So, there I was, carrying the last pot into the garage, having a full-blown midlife crisis right there on my empty patio. And that’s when I realized that my summer didn’t really vanish; it just got lost in the pile of work and to-do lists. Every trip to the basement felt like a tally of all the times we said, "We should sit outside," and then didn't.

I guess the lesson is that while I can't slow down time, I should make a point to use the patio next year. If life is going to pass by this quickly, I want it to be a blur of good moments, not just a pile of unused patio cushions.

Although I guess if I get really desperate this winter, I could always go down to the basement and sit on them. I might even light that citronella candle for some atmosphere. My partner would just walk in, give me that same long, loving look, and probably head back upstairs without saying a word.

What a Crumbl Cookie Taught Me About Hope

 

Have you ever had one of those days that just doesn’t want to end? I recently experienced one of those days. It wasn’t necessarily extraordinary. Sure, the sky was the most stunning blue I’ve ever seen, the air was crisp, and the leaves were just beginning to change. But after that, the day felt pretty ordinary. I spent the morning picking up dog poop in the yard, mowing the lawn, doing laundry, connecting with my family and friends, and watching football. When I glanced at the clock, I thought, “Wait, how is it already 6:00? Slow down, Sunday. I don’t want to say goodbye yet.”

And then I started thinking about the recent Tuesday I had. Honestly, it was an absolutely miserable day. It was dark, gloomy, and rained all day long, and on a day when I had meetings and appointments that kept me in the car and on the go for about 8 hours. As I was finally driving home, I passed a Crumbl cookie store and thought that if I ever deserved a giant sugary cookie, today was surely the day. But I had just committed myself to going sugar-free until the holidays. In the end, I didn’t stop at Crumbl, but not because of willpower. You see, there was no way I was going to get out of the car to get wet one more time that day. In fact, all I could think was, “How is it only 5:30? Why can’t it be bedtime now!”

As I reflected more on both of these days, I realized there must be a common thread between them. And then it hit me: they are both driven by the same psychological force—hope. And these two completely different days suggested to me that there are two kinds of hope: one says, "Please let this last," and the other says, "Please let this pass." Let me try to explain my thinking.

The way we perceive time is deeply emotional. When life feels full and we are meeting our goals and feeling connected, we want to savor it. We want more. But when we are struggling, feeling disconnected, sick, and tired of getting rained on, we seek relief. We want less. If you think about it, both of these reactions reveal something about hope.

When we don’t want the day to end, hope is realized. We’re living in a moment that feels good and satisfies most (or maybe all) of our needs. For me, it was the need to be outdoors and connect with nature (yes, even the dog poop), to be productive, and to spend time with my family and friends. That day, it felt like hope had come true, and I wanted to hold on.

 But when we can’t wait for the day to end, hope is what keeps us going. Yeah, I was hoping for a Crumbl cookie, but mostly, as I ached for dry clothes and my warm bed, I truly believed that tomorrow would be better. In a sense, hope becomes a life raft (and with the amount of rain we had that day, I mean this literally).

That moment of believing that “tomorrow will be better” captures the essence of what psychologists call hope. According to psychologists, hope is the belief that we will inevitably find the path to meet our goals and will also be motivated to pursue them. In other words, if we have a clear (ish) plan for tomorrow and we have the energy and will to achieve that goal, we have hope. If you think about it, we can see hope in both joy and struggle; in good days and in bad days. During the good days, hope reminds us to “stay here; this is what is possible.” And during the bad days, hope tells us to “keep going; something else is possible.”

As much as I want the good days to persist and the bad ones to end early, I have come to believe that both days are essential to human existence. If we didn’t have the bad days, would we appreciate the good ones as much? If I didn’t ache for dry clothes and a warm bed, would I really appreciate it when I finally got both?

So, maybe the goal isn't to cling to the days we love and rush through the ones we don’t really care about. Instead, maybe we should pause and think about what both kinds of days reveal about hope.

What am I hoping for today?

What am I hoping from today?

Because, really, every sunny Sunday and every gloomy Tuesday are part of the same forecast, and both remind us that hope is what keeps us moving forward.