OP-ED: Change or die
Alan Deutschman wrote a book several years ago with that exact title, “Change or Die.” In the book he posed the question, “What if you were given that choice to change or die, and if you didn’t change, your time would end a lot sooner than it had to?” The question then becomes, could or would you make the change? The examples given by Deutschman were both fascinating and sadly mind-numbing in that, even though we most often have the ability to change our behavior, it is very rare when we do. He gave examples of heart disease patients, repeat offending criminals, and even those individuals’ held hostage in rancid business practices.
Rather than leaving us to wallow in our own depression about what failures we are as members of the human race, he offered three critical keys to making the necessary changes to success: relate, repeat, and reframe. He then went on to elaborate and provide concrete evidence of how we can achieve lasting, revolutionary changes that are positive, attainable, and vital.
We have to ask the question, “What puts us in a state of mind that challenges us to both knowingly and continuously select the negative and to hold on to the insane habits and decisions that lead us time after time toward the same unhealthy conclusions?
Maybe that is the real question. What is the single thing that provides us with the ability to remove the scales from our eyes and see what it is we need to do to begin to make concrete, positive changes that lead to a higher quality, better life?
Deutschman’s book does evolve into a treatise of hopefulness, positive change, and optimism by providing meaningful examples and formulaic opportunities to actually make a difference. It ultimately comes down to wanting to do it. (Whatever that necessary it is.)
As we face the devastation of 1939 repeating itself with the war in Ukraine, and as COVID goes on to mutate again in Europe, we are faced with some very serious choices that, frankly, could significantly contribute to that ever so slight movement of the second hand on the doomsday clock. How do we, as rational human beings, keep tramping in that same steaming pile of dog droppings time after time? What are we lacking in our gray matter that creates the consistent rate of recidivism that leads us back to the same ridiculous conclusions?
My personal opinion is we have been brainwashed into believing that the path to happiness is power, money, and things. All we have to do is spend some significant time with happy people, and we will learn very quickly that their happiness comes from within. It comes from being comfortable with ourselves, loving each other, and knowing the right path is a simple path that follows the golden rule. If we actually started there, we could find both peace and happiness.
It’s not about a bigger kingdom, the most money, or the greatest power. Obviously, it may require one more significant round of violence, one more needless, senseless war, one more example of what happens to war criminals who indiscriminately attack and kill innocent victims, and one more example of how completely stupid this continuous quest for dominance is in relationship to simply working in concert for the greater good of mankind. There is no real easy answer to the complexity of the human animal’s desire to dominate and control, but there are ways to make lasting examples of those who just don’t get it.
For those of you who would always rather fight than change, dominate than cooperate, kill than heal, and fight to the death just to own someone else’s property, maybe, just maybe there will be a very special ending for you.
When will we ever learn? That is the question, and it sure feels like it better happen soon.
Nick Jacobs of Windber is a health-care consultant and author of two books.