(Easy) ch-ch-ch-changes

January 10th

Great song, I consider it an easy top 5 of David Bowie song catalog, but it is not the subject that I want to write about today. I want to write about changes and how easy it is to acknowledge them, analyze them, adjust to them and accept them. And how my attitude had changed towards a change since I got sober.

I am going through a transitional period at my work. In a couple of months, I am going to be working only part-time as I will endeavor on several side projects. There is a new person who will take over half of my duties that since the beginning of the year I teach our system and bring her up to speed on what I do and what we require in my job. She has more experience in this line of work than me, so that transition is going smoothly, and soon she will take over my duties. And yet, the first week of the month was terrible for me — I was still trying to do my job in full and teach and at the same time I was trying to explain to a new person what I was doing and how and why.

That didn’t work.

I couldn’t do two jobs at the same time and have good results. I was tired and frustrated and angry and nervous. I wasn’t doing my work the right way, and I wasn’t properly teaching the new person. Over the weekend, I rethought the situation and made some adjustments. I couldn’t change the given situation, so I accepted that I need to choose what I can do in eight hours without overextending myself. Teaching a new person is a priority, so starting today, I concentrated on that. I made choices about which of my duties can be done at some other time and accepted the fact that I cannot any longer do my work the same way I’ve done it for years. The situation has changed, and my reactions and expectations cannot be the same as well.

Simple realization and simple adjustment to a workday and workload. And it made so much of a difference. Today was an easy and pleasant day. I’m moving nicely along in the process of turning things over to the new person. I had time to catch my breath today when I wanted or needed to — I had time for a coffee and to sit down to a normal lunch. I had time for some small talk or to go out for a smoke as well. At the end of the workday, I still had a lot of energy and positive feelings.

And all I had to do was to actually think about what I was doing and feeling, check for possible options, and understand likely outcomes. And that was easy for me. I surprised myself with the easy acceptance and fundamental difference of understanding of an ongoing change.