I’m partway through transitioning from a PC to a Mac. Actually, I still have both, and I don’t ever expect to transition totally, so I’ve moved from PC-land into both-land.

This is not a painless transition. I’ve worked on PC’s so long, that I’m a power user there. I know all the shortcuts, and fly through things on autopilot.

Then came the Mac. At first I loved it! I adored features like the quick, easy editing of pictures in iPhoto. I take a lot of pictures, and this can save serious time compared to doing the same basic editing in Photoshop (which was always overkill for basic cropping and lightening).

Then I became frustrated, as my productivity on normal tasks plummeted. I can’t Alt-I-C anymore to insert a column? Now I have to hunt and click, which takes about 100 times as long. Even on some things I love, the transition itself is a time-sucker. (Like getting all those thousands of photos into the Mac. It’s still not done, after many, many hours.)

I started to see this all in terms of a change slider. It’s like adjusting the left-right balance on your stereo.

Resistance to change <—————||————–> Desire for change

I have these two sides battling it out in my mind over the Mac transition. Some moments the desire side is winning, and the slider shifts right. Then I hit a problem, and the slider moves back to the left.

Each of us has our own default setting. You probably know people who are eager for new experiences, and adapt easily to change:

Resistance to change <————————||—–> Desire for change

And others who are big on stability and routine, and try to avoid change:

Resistance to change <—–||————————> Desire for change

This is just a general tendency. All of us have the same opposing forces that come into play on each change situation we encounter. It’s just that some people have their default setting nearer one end than the other. It’s like they hear better out of one ear, so they keep the stereo adjusted to compensate.

Now there’s the presidential election. From early primary results, it appears that a large number of voters this year want change. What does it take to move so many people at one time towards the Desire for change? One answer is pain. When the pain of stability increases, it creates motivation for change. The more glum economic news there is, and the more of us it affects personally, the more we’ll want change.

(This leads to the thought that stability is not really possible - it’s just an illusion caused by different rates of change. But that’s another topic!)