The Cost of Standing Still

When we find ourselves resisting change, do we actually fear the outcome of that change or just the process of going through it? There’s an easy way to check.

Imagine that whatever you would transition to is the status quo, and that the current state is the proposed change. For example, what if the world was completely powered by renewable energy sources like solar and wind? Imagine that someone then discovered that there’s oil under the ground and beneath the ocean, and proposed that we extract it, transport it by pipeline and tanker, refine it and burn it to power our cars and heat our homes. In that scenario, how attractive would changing over to fossil fuels seem?

Yes, change has real costs, but so does the status quo. We just don’t see the price we’re already paying because we’ve factored it in unconsciously and taken it for granted. When we have to make a choice between change and the status quo, it’s important to factor in all the costs, and how long we’re willing to go on paying them. When we do that, we often find that standing still isn’t as effortless as it seems.