The Forces of Change

In spite of not being the most social person in the world, I still enjoy watching people.  This week has been no exception.

As many of you know I’ve been getting up each morning long before the sun comes up and going for a bike ride.  I do at least 20 miles a day, five days a week.  Since I’ve been riding I have decided that I should do it with a goal in mind.  Recently I mentioned on Facebook that I was going to do a 50-mile bike ride.  Since then I’ve upped the mileage of that ride to 120 miles.  Now I am calling my morning bike rides training regimens.  I know that a 120-mile bike ride over a three day period may not seem like much for some folks, but it is a major goal for me and I am really looking forward to it.

I recently took the bike in to a bicycle shop to have it serviced.  The servicing didn’t turn out so good and I’ve taken it back to get it fixed.  That is an entirely different story and depending upon how it all pans out there may be another story to share about a major sporting goods chain.  Anyway, the bike is in the shop and will be for a few days, so instead of riding the bike at four-thirty in the morning Monday I got up and walked the same trail that I normally ride.

Since I was doing something out of my normal routine I decided to try a little social science experiment.  I had a pretty good idea where the experiment would go before I did it since I had previously experienced the results of what I was going to do Monday.  Let me explain what happened before my morning experiment.

Susan and I normally walk the rail trail together in the mornings.  We are generally on the trail around seven-thirty in the morning.  As can be expected we pretty much see the same people every morning and exchange greetings.  There are two brothers in particular that we have come to know.  We always say hello to each other and it is not at all unusual for us to stop and chat for a few minutes then continue on our way, generally in opposite directions.  One morning toward the end of my bike ride, which coincided with the beginning of the brothers’ walk, I greeted them as I rode past them.  They had absolutely no idea who I was.

That is what led up to my little social science experiment on Monday.  Keep in mind that my bike is in the shop and that I walked this morning instead of ride the bike (the bike that I can’t ride because the shop didn’t fix it right in the first place and now I’m without a bike at the height of my training regimen – end of rant).

I’m always wearing a helmet, knee-high shorts, a T-shirt, my glasses, and I ride with lights on my bike when I’m riding.  Remember that I’m riding long before the sun comes up.  As I walked this morning I wore blue jeans, a T-shirt, a baseball cap, and I carried a flashlight (which I didn’t use).  You may remember a few weeks ago that I did a Friday Friends essay on the people I meet and have come to know each morning as I ride.  This morning’s experiment involved them.  My prediction was that they would not recognize me as we passed.  Of course you knew that already.

As I neared the halfway point of my walk I first met Phil, the 80 year-old Marine.  As we passed he nodded and said hello and kept on walking.  I said, “Good morning, Phil.”  He immediately stopped and turned around and looked at me.  “Greg?” he asked.  “I didn’t recognize you.  You are always on your bike and I know when you are coming because of the light on your bike.  You hadn’t passed me yet and I thought maybe you weren’t coming today.”

As we talked I saw Olga running toward us.  She said hello to Phil and rather than stop and join the conversation like she normally would, she kept on running.  (I loved it!)  I said, “Good morning, Olga.”  Just like Phil, she stopped dead in her tracks and turned around and came back and said, “Is that you Greg?  Where’s your bike?  I didn’t realize that it was you.”

In their defense it was still dark when we passed each other, but there was enough ambient light that we all could make out each other’s faces.

As I walked out I met the older couple from Florida that I had mentioned in my Friday Friends comments.  It was about a quarter after six in the morning when we passed and though the sun was not up there was enough light that that they could see who I was.  We passed and I said hello to them and we each kept walking in opposite directions.  We had maybe 20 feet between us when I heard a voice say, “Hey, aren’t you the bike guy?”  I just had to smile.  We stopped and visited and I explained why I was walking instead of riding.

The same thing happened on Tuesday when I met Mary on the trail.  I wished her a good morning as we passed going in opposite directions.  She muttered something in response and kept walking.  That was totally unlike her.  By the time we met a second time on our return trips on the trail she had figured out who I was.

I previously mentioned that we seek for affiliation and pointed to Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs.  The need for affiliation, belonging, and friendship falls immediately above our safety, security, and social stability needs, which is above those basic human physiological needs.  In many respects, what I experienced these two days was evidence of that second tier of needs, that of safety and security.

I recall taking different types of personality inventories and being asked questions about how I related to change.  I never really liked that question because I’ve always heard that people do not like change and I rather like it.  I enjoy seeing new places and I have been somewhat of a change agent in my careers.  However, just like we come to know and accept certain rhythms in life, those rhythms become familiar to us.  When we break those rhythms, or when they become broken for us, then our environment becomes unfamiliar and unstable.  We don’t really know what to expect.  We may not feel in danger, but the need for knowing where we fit into our environment becomes obvious.  This need is as much about familiarity as it is the need for employment, good health, and property.

Consider the following examples.  When you have taken a class where there is no assigned seating, where do you sit on the second and subsequent class meetings?  When you go to church, do you migrate to the family pew?  When you return to an area where you have visited sometime in the past, do you look for familiar landmarks?  Do you sometimes marvel at how things have changed?  Are you satisfied with yourself that you are in the right area when you see a familiar sight?  How do you feel, what passes through your mind when somebody else is sitting in the family pew?  How do you react when you don’t find those familiar landmarks?  How are you in large airport terminals that you have never been to before?  What do you do when you go to a conference or convention in a distant city and there is nobody there that you know and then off in the distance you see a familiar face?

It isn’t so much change that we dislike as it is the lack of familiar surroundings and circumstances.  It is the unknown that brings us discomfort.  Just like our mental and emotional comfort zones we also have our temporal comfort zones as well.  Those temporal comfort zones, those familiar places and circumstances help us to feel safe and secure.  They provide the framework for social and emotional comfort. 

Return with me to my little experiment.  My friends who are accustomed to seeing me in the dark hours of the morning, riding a bicycle, and wearing a bicycle helmet, essentially avoided me until they recognized me.  They only recognized me once I had spoken to them.  Admittedly, my appearance had changed, which goes further to prove the point.  They were not familiar with the person whose appearance was altered.  (I really want to say something cute like they didn’t recognize me with my clothes off, but that doesn’t seem quite right.)  Once they recognized me they stopped and engaged in conversation with me.  I am familiar to them.  They were now comfortable in visiting with the person that they knew, not the stranger they had never seen before.

So, is it change that we are uncomfortable with or do we seek familiar anchors to help us feel safe in our environment?  Would you rather go alone to a foreign land that you have never been to before and where there are different customs and languages or would you rather go with your spouse or close friend who has also never been there?  Perhaps it’s the anchor of familiar surroundings and circumstances that we prefer as opposed to change that we avoid.  Perhaps more of us would willingly embrace change if there was the promise of familiarity attached to it.