No Change Required

I was temporarily lost in thought this morning as the warm water run down my body - unfortunately I do not have the luxury of hot and cold running water; so it was back to basics - hot water added to a bucket of cold water. It does what it needs to do. Where was I? Yes lost in thought of human behaviour - our aversion to change, voluntary or involuntary, how we are creatures of habit and change of human behaviour is difficult to achieve. I suppose that is why the need for change management agent/specialist - it was a brilliant individual who thought of parlaying human beings preference to remain in the "way we do things around here" mold into a career.

Anyway I digress. Yesterday Sofie and I got into a tiff about an on again off again situation (quite frankly, I'm not sure it evens qualifies as a situation) - at the end of which, I figured what the hell, no worries, small ting, let's move on. But Sofie being Sofie, insisted on addressing the issue. I've been with this woman for years, and while I don't know her like the back of my hand - I know her pretty well (and she can say the same for me).

Her remedy for the "situation" is predictable - and that's ok. While we were having somewhat of a discussion about the "situation" (damn - this inverted commas situation thing is getting ridiculous - from now on the situation is IT), I thought back to when I was at secondary school and my mom would want me home from school by a designated time. I would often get home late - especially between the months of say May to June/July. At that time of year the sun sets later, so it becomes easier to lose track of time, so I would often get home really late. For which I had to suffer through my moms tirades. My remedy was to cede to her demands for a week or two then slowly revert to the status quo until her next tirade.

With that in mind, and the years of experience with my always aiming to please wife (God bless her soul), I know what to expect. Those thoughts occupied my mind with each bowl of warm water from the bucket - then I thought; really Earl, don't you think it a bit unfair to ask the woman to change, adapt, adjust to your needs, whims and fancies on demand. Seriously, it's not that big a deal when you put it in context - further the woman has had 30 odd years of doing things in her own modus operandi; you want her to change it for you, serious.

Human beings are creatures of habits - I've grown use to hers and she to mine. We adapt when the situation calls for it, we've been doing that well for the last seven years - it works; so in true change averse fashion, "if it ain't broke don't fix it."

Moving on.