Pandemic of Change

(6-minute read) – There’s a pandemic of change out there. Everyone wants to change the world or themselves or something. We seem to be obsessed with change – like an addiction. There’s a sense that everything that was, is wrong… we want a new order and we want it now.

We emphasise our personal rights to change in a backlash against authority. Post-modern society tells us we have a right to change and we must exercise it. Huge proportions of the first world’s population are permanently dissatisfied and demanding change.

There’s a humanistic culture of entitlement and empowerment. Humanism affirms that human beings have the right, responsibility and capability to give meaning and shape to their own lives. This is good and well, but it can cause problems in individual mental health and in societies.

The masses want change

Humanism in the west, fuelled by the power of social media to make our voices heard instantaneously to more people than we’ve ever met, makes for a population charging headlong to meaninglessness. A population of billions demanding a million and one things in a web of high speed connections across the world. It’s a charging herd, out of control and destructive.

We seem to be addicted to change. The more we see it, the more we want it. Like with any addiction, it becomes the illusory hope of a meaningful life.

Staying the same seems to be bad. Preserving tradition is confused for enslavement. So we stick it to the man. We come to dislike tradition, authority and status quo. So we exercise our rights to a different life, something we have been told by humanists and positive New-Agers that we can get for ourselves and that, in so doing, we will solve the problems in our lives.

No one stops to admit that most often we know little about nothing. We may not be lifetime politicians. We may not have studied theological tradition or scientific method. Yet we have opinions on everything. And we voice them because we can.

Following the crowd

Before we know it we’re following the crowd or creating a viral new movement. Our headlong rush toward change is reductionistic and careless. We throw the baby out with the bath water.

Religion is usurped just because some crazy fundamentalists have reduced it to dogma. We throw it all out, losing the spiritual beauty that has come to us through thousands of years of wisdom traditions.

We rise up against political status quos because we’ve read too many left field conspiracy theories about how the political elite and their financial puppeteers control our lives. There may be some truth in some of this stuff. But we don’t take the time to research what is true and what is not. To discern what to throw out, what to change, and what we should value and preserve.

It has happened

Word spread like wild fire when a Tunisian hawker set himself alight on 17 December 2010. That was the start of what became known as the Arab Spring. Social media propelled a run of uprisings across Northern Africa and the Middle East. The people wanted change. And they charged with uncontrolled abandon, aggressive entitlement and illusory power. There were no alternatives planned. But no one cared. The world simply got swept away in the movement for change. Despots fell. Great. But what followed was worse. Libya, Egypt and Syria are still reeling from degrees of economic and political instability and civil war.

And it is happening again

We’re seeing the same sort of chaotic political change in America and Europe as populist nationalism dominates all aspects of liberal democracy and brings fascism back. Rather quickly, people became disillusioned with the liberal status quo of the likes of Obama, Cameron and Merkel. All evils were reduced to austerity and monopoly macro-economics. It all had to go. So a referendum in the UK saw Brexit’s surprise victory. An election in the US put a reality TV star in the Oval Office. And right wing alternatives gained popularity all over Europe.

The voters, average citizens like you and me, were spurred on by an aggressive entitlement attitude with no regard for due consideration of alternatives and implications. They believed what they heard because they were ready to hear it. They don’t fully know what they are doing. And that’s more dangerous than the retreating status quo.

I’m not saying the dominance of greedy, capitalist elites that co-opted liberal democracy for their own ends was acceptable. Something had to change. I’m just not sure where we’re going is any better though.

In the status quo at least the powers-that-be kept order. Now we are moving into a world where everyone wants the power. And so many who are getting power, through social media channels and other means, are not qualified. These new manipulators are leading the heard to where they don’t know. It’s the blind leading the blind. Our demand for change is going to be our downfall. We should be careful what we wish for.

Change on a personal level

On a personal level, our view that change will solve our problems is making us lazy and unwilling to deal with the challenges we have to face. We run away from the challenges of staying the same. Challenges that lead to growth. Commitments that build character. Instead we live free – or so we think. We change as and when we want. And we neglect to build any lasting value for our families and communities in the process.

We seem to be externalising our problems and projecting them onto friends, family, community and society – looking for something that must change around us in order for us to find happiness. There’s no personal accountability. There’s no patient turning within to find solutions. Happiness and contentment must be now. We want instant gratification. And if we don’t have it, something must change.

I’m not saying that change is never the answer. In some instances it is absolutely essential and must be fought for out of a deep conviction and commitment to justice. In some instances it is inevitable due to circumstances outside of our control. Then we must accept it and embrace it. Dealing with change is a wonderful growth opportunity in itself. But needing change is not.

The world needs people who are quieter.  Quieter in mind and quieter in body.  People who meditate. Detached from desires, including the desire for change.  Ironically these are the type of people that will change everything… for the better.