I believe there are two types of people; those who are stressed by opening a new chapter in life, and those who are excited. And one can be both at the same time.
It is happening to me right now, in early September 2022, moving out of my room at the student accommodation of King's where I spent the last 12 months. It's an interesting conflict of feelings that mix the excitement of starting a new part of my life in London in a new kind of accommodation, and the nostalgia I'm starting to build thinking back to the beautiful memories I have of the past year.
The two types of people
I would associate the reaction to closing one chapter of life to the approaches to job that most people divide themselves into. There are the ones, the majority, who love to have their safe position and hope that nothing changes, or that things change as slowly as possible. This makes them more comfortable, and it's translated also in the stress that comes when also things change in their personal life.
Moving to a new place like what I'm doing is something stressful, even painful sometimes, and can bring up memories and emotions that are not always pleasant.
On the other hand, there are people that thrive in situations like this, when everything changes, everything mixes, and nothing (or little) have been planned for the near future. This is a more entrepreneurial attitude because that is exactly what entrepreneurs do every day, move into unexplored territories, and try to find innovative solutions to daily problems.
Changing chapters in life, like moving to a new house, make people feel in either these two ways, but they are not mutually exclusive. This means that one can feel both ways at the same time and unite the nostalgia of good memories from the past with the excitement and fear of new unknown things that are going to happen.
What kind of reaction do you think you would have if you were to move into a new home, and do you think you could feel both ways, positive and negative, at the same time as I am doing?
Getting used to this kind of changes is not easy, but this kind of changes are sometimes inevitable and so we need to deal with them in some way. Going through big life chapters is not an easy challenge, but we can do things to make it easier.
How to deal with change
I would recommend a simple mental exercise to help you dealing with substantial changes.
You cannot go back in time and, sometimes, you cannot prevent things from happening, so try to find the one positive aspect of the big step you are about to make and focus on that as much as possible.
Focus on the excitement, focus on the perspective of new positive things to happen. Memories will be memories anyway and they live in the past. Keep them, but don't attach to them.
Remember that all the memories that you are leaving in your past, were possible only because before them you close a previous chapter of your life and decided to start a new one.
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