Risking Change

In reading reports of the astounding and ever-evolving unrest in Egypt (and, indeed, across the entire Arab world) these past couple of weeks, one particular quote caught my attention. In answer to a question about what had inspired so many people in Egypt to risk arrest or assault—or worse—to protest, one protester answered, “We wanted change badly enough to risk it.”
“It,” I gathered, meant the risk of reprisal, arrest, or other personal injury or consequences. But the phrase would apply, as well, to the bigger risk the protesters are taking, stepping into the very unpredictable and uncertain land of change.
Most of the time, on this site, the focus is on relatively small-scale change: people trying new adventures, changing paths, or reframing the challenge of an unplanned and unwanted shift in job, relationship, or life. But many of the principles of change—its costs, challenges, and opportunities—are the same regardless of scale. And just as individual people can sometimes reach a point where the pain of not changing outweighs the pain of changing (the point at which most personal change actually occurs), so it is with societies, as well. One of the first posts I did on this site, in fact, (“The Possibility of Change,” January 17, 2009) discussed the “complex and nuanced dance” of change on a society-wide level.
I’ve often wondered (and am currently researching, for my book on Passion), what possesses someone to risk personal injury, freedom, or other consequences in order to agitate for change. Back in 1965, how did Representative John Lewis find the courage to walk across that bridge in Selma, right into the police clubs that almost cost him his life? In 1989, how did the now-famous man in Tiananmen Square, China, decide to risk his life to stand up to a tank?
But there is more at risk than just personal injury for the protesters in Egypt, Tunisia, and  the other Arab countries, where the “change” they’re advocating involves bringing down the existing government. For change is unpredictable. And once you begin to change a life, a system, or a society, you can’t fully control—or even know—exactly where it will end up.
It’s easy to think, at the outset of any change or adventure, that the change itself will make everything okay. Just think of how many people think or say, “If only I could get … a boyfriend/girlfriend/married/divorced/a baby/a new job (fill in the blank) … then everything will be wonderful.” And how few times that works out to be true.
The truth is, change is a very complex process. And not only is there no guarantee that what you end up with will be better, but there’s always the chance that what you end up with will actually be worse. It’s why even known misery is often more comfortable than the unknown.
Not that the ending is completely a matter of chance. But it’s like plunging into a river rapid with a kayak. To a certain extent, forces outside of your control are going to determine where you end up, or even if you make it through the rapid in one piece. But you can still paddle as hard as you can and try to direct your kayak away from the worst spots, and along a “line” you plot through the chaotic waters to the destination you’ve set your sights on, on the other side. I also firmly believe that there can be wonderful rewards that emerge from the process, even if it’s messy, and even if you don’t necessarily end up exactly where you thought you would.
Nevertheless, to shake up an entire established order, while understanding (assuming that the protesters understand, of course, which not all of them do, but some of them surely must) that you are doing a bit of dice-rolling on what you will get in the trade, takes … well, something remarkable. I’m not even sure whether it’s simple courage, or desperation, or some kind of strength and will to change that emerges at some point when you simply cannot continue any longer the way you are. Perhaps you have to have lived in a place where it’s not only oppressive, but also where you see, as I said in my January 2009 post, no possibility of change. Perhaps only then does the uncertainty, and even the possibility of chaos, become a welcome alternative. Maybe only then do the risks become worth it.
A bit of rose-colored fantasy, idealism and optimism probably doesn’t hurt, either. Most explorers and entrepreneurs say that they didn’t imagine their venture could possibly take as long, or be as hard, as it turned out to be. Which may be why people have the courage to take on such extraordinary ventures in the first place. Who knows? Maybe our rose-colored blinders persist because they have evolutionary utility.
But the reality is, there’s risk in change. And big risk in big change. How the protests in the Arab world pan out is anyone’s guess, at the moment. It will be interesting, as well, to see how the protesters’ enthusiasm for change evolves, if their protests are, in fact, successful and they’re faced with the challenge of building a new government and society. (A challenge Southern Sudan is wrestling with, as we speak.)
In the meantime, there is just the push for change, with the only certainty being the conviction that wherever else it leads, it will be somewhere different than where they’ve been. But perhaps, for people willing to put their lives on the line in the fight for change, that’s enough.