Who Moved the Furniture?

My wife and I recently "rearranged" the living room in our house (even if ever so slightly) in anticipation of having some out-of-town guests/family come for a short visit this coming week. We wanted to make our living room a little bit easier for entertaining both in-town and out-of-town guests/family. We also wanted to make the room better for television/movie watching when there are only three of us here doing that.

Anyway, for several days after we did the rearranging, each time I passed through the living room, I thought to myself, "Who moved the furniture?"

Isn't it funny how accustomed and comfortable we can get to things being a certain way in life (even down to the arrangement of furniture in rooms in our houses)? And then, someone or something changes (even if only in a small or insignificant way) and we exclaim to ourselves, "Who moved the furniture?"

The older I get, the more I seem to notice changes, even small ones.

I have found that there is comfort in things being and/or staying somewhat predictable in life. There is comfort in not having to re-think everything each and every day we live. As a matter of fact, it can be downright uncomfortable when you have to adapt to change after change after change after change. Why don't we just leave things the way they are? Why do we have to continually change things?

Well, I've also come to realize that change is just a part of life. Get over it!

As much as I'd like to lock down on somethings and declare them to be totally unchangeable from this point forward, I need to be careful. An attitude like that only leads to unhealthy rigidity, potential alienation of people in my life and maybe even a bad case of ugly legalism. Taken to an even greater extreme, an unwillingness to accept and respond to change leads to a lot of other not so great attributes, too.

On the other hand, there are some things that are worth locking down on and declaring to be totally unchangeable. And that's really O.K., too. Living your life in constant state of change (oftentimes just for the sake of resisting permanence and/or stability) is no more virtuous than living your life unwilling to change. As with a lot of other things in life, the trick is trying to find a healthy balance between constant change and an unwillingness to change at all.

Recently, I traveled to the place where I grew up in Iowa. We visited several family members there. In a lot of ways it seemed to me that not a lot had changed since I was living there 40-50 years ago. I didn't know how I felt about that. Why hadn't this place and the people changed more? What was wrong with them? And then I said to myself that the fact that not a lot had changed was also very good. There were (and are) a lot of things in Iowa that shouldn't change. I realized that even though I had changed a lot from where I was 40-50 years ago, a lot of things also had not changed and that was equally good.

Balancing change, adapting to changes without compromising, and sorting out what really matters in life is key when it comes to change. Wish I had the fine art of it mastered, but I don't. I probably still resist change in a lot of areas, and then am way too prone to change when change is not necessary at all.

So, here's my challenge to all of you reading this. The next time you notice a change, and either remark to yourself, "Who moved the furniture?" and resist it with all your mind, soul and strength or accept the change way too quickly without fully evaluating all the ramifications, I would encourage you to ask yourself the following questions, long before passing final judgment on the change:

- Am I reacting poorly to this change because I am hopelessly stuck and unwilling to adapt to something new and different?

- Am I becoming too rigid and "out-of-touch" with the world I am living in because I resist changes like this so vehemently?

- What did I abandon and/or give-up by accepting this change? In the grand scheme of things, was that abandonment and/or compromised principle worth giving up?

- Is the change I am now facing a change just for change sake? Am I way too prone to make the change just because it is a "popular" thing to do?

- Is the change I am accepting causing me to forget where I've come from and all that was invested in me in the past?

Who moved the furniture?