Tilting at windmills
The windmills aren’t the problem, it’s the tilting.
In Cervantes’ day, ’tilting’ was a word for jousting. You tilted your lance at an enemy and attacked.
Don Quijote was noted for believing that the windmills in the distance were giants, and he spent his days on attack.
Change can look like a windmill.
When we say, “the transition to a new place is making me uncomfortable,” we’ve expressed something truthful. But when we attack a windmill, we’ve wasted our time and missed an opportunity to focus on what matters instead.
When my dad taught at the University of Buffalo, the heart of his MBA classes was teaching about the ‘change agent’. This is the external force that puts change into motion. The change agent, once identified, gives us an understanding of our options and the need to respond, not to react.
Every normal is a new normal, until it is replaced by another one.