There is No Progress Without Change (1)

Hello dear friends,

I am pleased to introduce you to my friend, Sean, my guest blog contributor today. Sean has a passion for writing and has a unique way of inspring his audience. Enjoy! 

Admit it. You hate change. It’s ok. As humans, it is our natural instinct to resist change. We resist, usually, until a change is forced upon us and we must adapt. That jerk on the road will keep rolling through stop signs until they are pulled over and given a hefty little ticket, forcing them to change. Or at least we hope they will consider modifying their driving habits. We aren’t really flawed in this way. It’s our own personal version of evolution. The environment forces us to adapt. It can also be easily related to basic physics. A body at rest will tend to stay at rest and a body in motion will tend to stay in motion, unless acted upon by an outside force. Of course, wouldn’t we rather have it not come to the point when that outside force pulls us over and gives us a citation, advising us to change?

The truth is we all would love to change certain things in our lives, right? Better job, better pay, nicer car, place to live, etc. But we want all those things to just come, no sweat off our backs. It’s a nice dream, but it’s stupid. We cannot expect to have these things given to us without changing something about ourselves. We have to put the work in. It’s the first law of thermodynamics. This is all science. Those who don’t see this as true are touched in the head. After all, the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. Yes, that was Einstein. Science. The point here is that the only sane thing for us to do as human beings is to embrace change. Things won’t get better unless you make them better. If we initiate the necessary changes in ourselves, we can better ourselves and avoid the horrible feelings associated with the changes that are forced upon us by our environment.

I am a chemistry graduate student, so I get to see my colleagues succeed and fail all of the time. And while I would prefer my friends to continuously do well, it’s always interesting to see how they deal with disappointment and face challenges. One of the most devastating things that can happen to a scientist is being scooped. If you had been working on a project for a long time and brought it to completion, only to have an opposing lab publish their identical results days before you submit your project, you have been scooped. All that work down the tubes.

Stay tuned for part 2 tomorrow!