Kenneth Burke & Quicksand
Humans do not like change. Especially when success or happiness is not guaranteed at the end of it.
I am no better. I have been a student at 5 schools since I started my education in the good old days of preschool. I have joined at least 8 different basketball teams from park district to club to high school varsity. Before every change, I was terrified. On cue, my stomach twisted and turned before every “first.”
However, I undeniably will admit that each step was beneficial in my personal growth. If I stayed put and remained hesitant, I would not be where I am, not even close. I would have been too scared to move to Texas to attend Baylor University from my hometown in the Chicago suburbs, too scared to talk to new people, too scared to even be writing this right now. Change has pushed me to experience new careers, colleges, and colleagues that my eyes would have been shut to if I stayed put.
Recently, I was introduced to Kenneth Burke in my rhetoric class. After interning for innovative, digital companies, my brain automatically connected his teachings to my own beliefs on how higher education should CHANGE.
“The reluctance to let go of inadequate ways of coping can be attributed to a sense of loss or guilt. But, until that reluctance is overcome, the process of reorientation through which, as Burke explains, the subject comes to adjust her current system of pieties and to see herself and the world in a new, more empowering way cannot occur. How that reluctance is overcome and that adjustment is made, however, often entails a violation of fundamental beliefs. Reorientation comes at a price.
This quote is beautiful in explaining the detrimental cost of settling and the benefits of changing. More often than not, people are too scared to change what has been working for them. What is working for you now will not work in a few year. You are holding yourself back. We are holding ourselves back with fear of change.
For my readers that like metaphors and visuals: Picture quicksand. You take a step into it. All is fine. All is good. You stay put. As you are slowly sinking and sinking, the world around you is shifting, moving, CHANGING. (You probably see where this is going.) By the time you realize, by the time that your OLD methods are not working anymore, it is too late. You are knee deep and stuck.
You have the opportunity and the calling to change your antiquated ways that have been working for the past 10 years. They will not work with how fast technology is advancing. While you are at your first step in the quick sand, step out. Do not stay put and LET yourself sink.
