How To Implement Change

Keeping with my current thoughts as of late, I realized this morning while getting gas that people are afraid of change because for some, change says it's been wrong this whole time and their negative internal dialogue starts...How did I not see this coming, How did I not know things weren't right, How could something broken work so well for me, What's wrong with me..........

It looks like we need to get over feeling as though we are being attacked by people that don't understand the situation, stay calm and explain things to them. Encourage them to think objectively and see why they fight change. Teach them how to debate instead of argue. Teach them not to feel hurt when their ideas aren't understood or if they feel their ideas aren't accepted keeping them from adding more. Those that debate better than they argue should take feeling into account. Not that they need to debate with feeling, keep with the rationality, but know that anyone you converse with and debate with might feel hurt. You don't need to understand why, but accept that it happens. Keeping with debating and not arguing, ask why they feel pain with the topic. They may need help taking themselves out of the subject. They possibly need help including other people and how more people than not can benefit. If change doesn't benefit anyone else then it may not be necessary to implement.

I almost said that if change doesn't benefit a large amount of people, but that's not always correct. It's not fair to the deaf community to not have visual cues like when they can cross the street and it's not fair to people pushing cheap strollers and anyone using a wheelchair to not have safe and easy access onto and off of a sidewalk. I think a majority of people can walk, though when I was a little girl there was an elderly man down the street that had two false legs and he walked in front of his house all the time...I miss him and his wife, and a majority of people can hear and see, etc, so just because a minority will benefit doesn't make an idea for change wrong.

Mostly, change doesn't mean anything is or was broken. Someone probably saw what may have seemed like a crucial thing to miss in the planning, but it was noticed after the change was implemented whether their opinion was heard or not. This is why I hope to see people working together on change. Get input from as many people as possible and allow more time in the brainstorm phase of the planning phases. Everyone has good ideas. Some people feel like their ideas don't matter so I hope to see more organization in bringing ideas from those who can't get to meetings out of disability or depression -not speaking because you think your opinion doesn't matter is part of depression and to combat that aspect, we need to try harder to reach out to as many people as possible- and then we can see a better sense of community and we can grow into happier cities and towns. We can save an awful lot of money if we have more ideas when brainstorming a proposed change instead of imposing and enacting a change that doesn't benefit many people but instead impedes most people.