Change Is Hard / Transformation and a Life Worth Living

Change—it turns out—is hard. Having an insight is one thing. Living it out is another.

How are we supposed to live differently when we—not to mention the world we live in—are pretty much the same as before?

The inertia of habits and routines and just the way things are wins out and smothers the flames of insight before they can kindle a real fire in my life.

Lecturer at Yale College and Life Worth Living Co-Founder, Ryan McAnnally-Linz reflects on the challenges of personal transformation in this this chapter-by-chapter video curriculum series based on his bestselling book (with Matt Croasmun and Miroslav Volf), Life Worth Living: A Guide to What Matters Most.

Transcript

More often than I’d like, I have a specific kind of frustrating experience.

I come to some insight about what matters most. I see a direction I’m convinced it would be good for my life to go. I’m energized and inspired. And then—my life keeps chugging along just like before.

The inertia of habits and routines and just the way things are wins out and smothers the flames of insight before they can kindle a real fire in my life.

Change—it turns out—is hard. Having an insight is one thing. Living it out is another. How are we supposed to live differently when we—not to mention the world we live in—are pretty much the same as before?

One type of response to this question sticks to the level of behavior. It says, don’t try to change your desires. Instead, try to arrange your incentives to work with your desires to get the behavior you want.

Others will counter, however, that this approach treats yourself as effectively an object for manipulation. You are your own subject in a behavioral economics experiment.

They’ll say that what matters isn’t just changing what you do but transforming who you are. Maybe that’s a matter of reason slowly winning over your lesser impulses.

Maybe it’s a matter of asking for help, whether from a community or God or someone or something else.

Maybe it’s a matter of shaking off the internalized voice of social conformity and getting in touch with the real you.

As always, the views differ. The point is, if you’re going to live out your vision of flourishing life, you’ll probably need to make a change, and that means you’ll have to make a bet on how best to do that.