Oil Vs. Butter
Posted by Mitch Mitchell on Mar 14, 2011
I was having a conversation with my wife about cholesterol. At my age, I'm borderline in having an issue with cholesterol and I was telling her how I worried a little bit about it. She said it's because I cook everything in butter.
"You should cook almost everything you eat in oil if you need to use anything at all."
"But I've always cooked everything in butter," I stated.
"That doesn't mean it's always been the right thing to do."
"Won't it change the taste of things I eat?"
"No, and it's better for you. Embrace the change and you'll live healthier."
I thought about that phrase for awhile "embrace the change." I thought about it because my life is a dichotomy when it comes to change. I can easily embrace some technological changes while fighting against others. I can easily change a process that I don't think is working, yet will buckle against a change that I don't see fixing something, but instead making a change for change's sake.
I went back to when I was a director and every once in awhile I'd want to make a change to a process. Some people would want to know why, and I always explained why. Sometimes they didn't want to do it, so I'd ask them why, and if they gave me an answer such as "because I like it this way" or "because I've always done it this way", we made the change. That type of answer was never sufficient for me.
Change isn't always good, but some changes are good. Sports teams change coaches all the time. College sports teams change consistently, as players either graduate or move on in some other fashion. Phones have drastically changed since the iPhone came about. TV started to change when signals went digital. Even radio changed when it added FM.
Even people change. Some of the mores we had in the 70's are gone in 2011, and the attitudes towards work have changed as well. We have employees who don't believe "the company is like a family" line that every organization used to tout in the past. They also don't believe, for the most part, that they're going to join a company and be there for the rest of their lives anymore. Overall, most people are looking for a way to work smarter, not harder, which probably explains why I'm reading The 4-Hour Work Week right now.
Sometimes we do have to make changes to things we do for our betterment. From the day I turned 18 until the day I turned 42, I never took any pills in my life, and that includes pain killers. Now I have to take medication for a variety of reasons to help me stay healthy. Every person finds that they have to make changes in their life of some fashion to either maintain where they are or to improve something in their lives. We can decide to fight everything or embrace at least some of it.
Starting tomorrow, I will be cooking my eggs in oil. What change are you willing to take to make your life better?
Everyone is afraid of change. I don’t like change when the only reason given is “because it’s the way it is”. I am a curious person by nature, I need an explanation for a change, even if the change does make sense to me instinctively.
It’s probably a form of defense: if the one making the change is able to give a “why”, it means he fully understands the reasons behind it. And that’s true, too, when I am the one causing the change.
I’m the same as you, Gabriele. Not all change is good, and I like to evaluate things as well before allowing a change to take place. Still, every once in awhile it’s taken out of our hands.