4 The Oregon Surveyor | Vol. 46, No. 5 From the PLSO Office Aimee McAuliffe, PLSO Exec. Secretary Coming Together Is a Beginning “Coming together is a beginning, staying together is progress, and working together is success.” —Henry Ford Fall is a time of true juxtaposition. Seasonally, it is the end of summer as the year wraps up before it can renew itself in the spring. For kids, it is a fresh school year that brings new shoes and clothes, summer stories from their friends, and hope for a new kid to bring some excitement to the classroom. When you’re a kid, change is constant, and a three-month break feels like a lifetime to wait before returning for new possibilities with freshly sharpened pencils. Kids are hard-wired to accept new beginnings as a part of life. For adults, change is not easy because there is pain in uncertainty. Mary Shelly wrote in Frankenstein that “nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change.” We tend to be slow to accept change even when things aren’t ideal because we have comfortable habits. Good or bad, habits bring routine, which gives the illusion of control. Our brain is also reward-based, which means it releases dopamine when we perform habits (often the bad ones). This makes it harder to create change. It. Does. Not. Feel. Good. How many times have you been at work or volunteering on a committee, and someone asks why something is done a certain way? I think we all know what the answer is usually: “Because that’s the way we’ve always done it.” That means, one person or a group of people decided that a process worked for that particular group of people in that particular time, and it just stayed that way for the next 200 years. It doesn’t matter that people process information and perform tasks differently. It doesn’t matter that it’s not the easiest or quickest way. It doesn’t even have to be the most affordable way. That is just the way we’ve always done it and I know that if I do it this way too, I don’t have to think too hard because I can just follow this equation. Nobody will question me too hard and bada bing, bada boom it’s done...until the next time. Until one day, the world has changed enough on its own by other people who don’t care about being questioned or doubted, and it affects everything else like the domino effect. What does this prove? Probably that we were smarter when we were younger because we weren’t under any illusions that we pull all the strings. We accepted that life is full of constant change, most of which is beyond our control. You know what we can control? Our behavior. How we respond and react to change is what makes the difference in success and happiness. John C. Maxwell, author of The 21 When we were younger, we accepted that life is full of constant change, most of which is beyond our control. You know what we can control? Our behavior. How we respond and react to change is what makes the difference in success and happiness.
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