C10 General Principle

Which do you think is more likely?

Lasting desirable changes only occurs when immense in scope.

OR

Meaningful change only lasts when integrated with other things we need to last.

Anankelogy

If only you could quickly solve your problems, right? A big solution may seem like just what you need to fix a big problem. But too general a solution often brings with it a set of its own problems. For example, indulging your hunger too quickly with a big meal can lead to overeating. Or how throwing money at a problem likes to spark new problems.

Desperation to ease pain can tempt us to miss the small steps necessary to create sustainable solutions. Smaller steps have time to integrate with other areas in your life. Too immense of a change can quickly unwind and send you back somewhere worse than before.

Progress is not always linear. Two quick steps forward may jerk you back a step. Changes in one area disturbs other areas you likely do not want to change. Sometimes in ways you can’t even see, at least not at first.

For example, consider the consequences of ending a relationship too abruptly. You fault the other, but then the same problem pops up in your next relationship. So you quit that relationship and start another, only to see the same problem. Coincidence?

Quitting a relationship may seem like your only option. The more your intent is to avoid life’s natural discomforts, the more drawn to seek drastic changes to try to get back to your comfort zone. The bigger the jerk in the opposite direction, the more likely you end up vacillating between extremes.

Need-response

Anankelogy understands you must address your self-needs and your social needs to faithfully attend your many other needs. Consider your need to get from one place to another. You must have the initiative to provide for the means for travel where no one else is going to raise a finger. You must also seek supports to provide the vehicle you can never produce completely by yourself.

Life presents a mix of these inward-looking self-needs and outward-focused social needs. Life also presents barriers to equally resolving your affected self-needs and affected social needs. Life can pull you toward being able to resolve more of your self-needs than your social needs, or more of your social needs than your self-needs.

The more you can resolve these complementary sets of psychosocial needs on par with each other, the more you can enjoy psychosocial balance. The more your life eases your self-needs more than your social needs, or social needs more than self-needs, the more you naturally slide into psychosocial imbalance.

You end up vacillating between generalizations to address the resulting strain. This is when you most likely opt for “big” changes. You feel a need to quickly get to the other side. Such vacillation can easily become a painful trap holding you back from reaching your life’s full potential.

Reactive Problem

Once trapped in this self-defeating vacillation cycle, swinging wildly between extremes to claw for some kind of relief, the more your “big” changes set you up for more painful problems down the road. You react to problems, you overcompensate, you exaggerate, and may even slip into despair.

Once routinized into a daily norm, you naturally develop a psychosocial orientation toward one or the other.

• If your self-needs routinely resolve more than your social needs, you tend to gravitate toward what anankelogy identifies as a “wide” orientation. This predisposes you to politically left leaning views.

• If your social needs routinely resolve more than your self-needs, you tendto gravitate toward what anankelogy identifies as a “deep” orientation. This predisposes you to politically right leaning views.

The more you try to ease the resulting tension with the big changes of ideology, the more problems you find. The more you generally react instead of carefully respond to your underserved needs, the less likely the changes you make can grow roots and remain.

Responsive Solution

Need-response provides Responsive Depolarization to cultivate small adjustments from psychosocial imbalance into psychosocial balance. Need-response supports meaningful adjustments by integrating character traits like grace and empathy, to help support sustainable growth.

You can also apply these character “refunctions” in the need-responsive tool called Personally Responsive. You melt norms of alienation by personally addressing what others may need of you. Which can spark a meaningful dialogue of what you specifically need of each other. You can then let go of that desperation for making big changes as you relate better to where each other is honestly at.

The Relationally Responsive tool helps you appreciate how nature continually pulls you toward psychosocial balance. Let it show you how you naturally go through seasons to identify and address your strained self-needs on one season, and then your affected social needs in a later season.

Each smaller adjustment integrates the miniscule details bringing meaning to your life. Nature produces the many needs you experience. So let nature guide you toward deeper balance. Then you can let the smaller positive changes reach deep to establish solid roots. Then your desirable changes will definitely last longer.

Responding to your needs

How does this principle speak to your experience of needs? Post in our Engagement forum your thoughtful response to one of these:

• Just because a change is huge cannot imply that it will not last.

• The better I can relate to the needs of others, the easier to mutually agree on meaningful change.

• I’ve made small changes and big changes and even some small ones don’t last.

• Change for change sake is not necessarily good, and can actually be quite bad.

Instead of selecting one of these, post your own engagement feedback about your experience with the subject of this principle. Remember the aim is to improve our responsiveness to each other’s needs, toward their full resolution. If you’re new at posting here, first check the guide below.