Ah, a new year. A time filled with endless opportunity, change, and the squeaky-clean look of a fully blank slate. For some, this mental image might have filled you with the peace and zen you only come about once a year. But if you’re anything like me, those words might have tossed your brain into panic mode equal to SpongeBob when he forgets everything about acting like a fully-functioning sea sponge, including his name.

The good news is, you’re not alone in the way that change and uncertainty give you full-body chills and a hearty amount of ick. The other good news is that this blog post won’t be one of those generic, happy-go-lucky guides on how to start your New Year’s resolutions and make sure they stick (or so I hope). Though it is a little late being partway through the month already, and you might have fallen off the wagon, maybe with my help and a more unconventional journey through VPL’s stacks, you can get back on the bucking horse we call change (and sometimes resolutions) with a little more confidence and a little less SpongeBob screaming.

There’s one thing that we might need to admit to ourselves before we start: change is scary, and change is hard, and staying the same is both less scary and hard. It might not seem that revolutionary, but when I first read that in the introduction to Ross Ellenhorn’s How We Change, my mind was a little blown. He goes on to explain that the mind likes things that are routine and comfortable, and any change is decidedly Not That. Which is where most people find themselves at an impasse with… themselves (and often why even New Year’s resolutions end a couple of inches away from the starting line). Even more so, if you fall into the exclusive club of change dreaders, surprisingly, you’re more likely to view change as a forgone conclusion because… well, isn’t that what everyone else just does (without the urge to hibernate)? Again, not as revolutionary on paper, but when put in words when you’re in the depths of a mini existential crisis, it does help to drown out the SpongeBob-isms. What really grabbed me about Ellenhorn’s book, and what makes How We Change a great starting point for the averse, is that it treats change as not the immovable ending that most people think it is. It offers ways to measure all the pros and cons of changing or not doing it at all, because there are always cons to anything you do (and measuring situations often helps you actually do the things you want to! Eventually, of course). It also paints you 11 different portraits of the things about change that may make you want to hightail it in the opposite direction, so that way you can pinpoint what exactly is turning you into the Road Runner and start treating it as the yin to the yang you want to achieve instead of persona non grata #1.

If all of that left you with a much-needed sigh of relief, my next pull off the shelves might also be a little comfort (if only for the fact that it comes from the neurospicy mind of someone who’s part of our very elite club). Olga Khazan’s Me, but Better takes a bit more of an entire personality overhaul approach to meeting change, but while the concept had me a little skeptical, I couldn’t help but be a little curious about how things went since Khazan is also a master of the perpetual and never-ending hole-digging of “what if’s”. She’s also well versed in the philosophy of (literally) “faking it until you make it”, sharing her experiences of trying just about anything that she truly does not want to do, from off-brand group therapy to forcing herself to go out to concerts and (gasp) improv theatre classes in an attempt to rebuild her personality from the ground up and make her more resilient to life’s ups and downs. If you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, maybe you can give this method a try. I still might need another year (or three).  

If your relationship with change isn’t as scorched earth though, something in the pages of Change Happens might hit the spot. It’s a little book of quotes from some very famous people on change and all the ways to deal with it (or at least weather its storm). Admittedly, not all of them landed with me, and sometimes you might pause to think about how hard someone like Warren Buffett’s life must have been to make them so “world-wise”, but it is broad-spectrum enough for at least a few things to hit home. I also can’t resist a little book with some artful illustrations inside, so I’d still call this a win for the library of change haters.

Speaking of tiny books with illustrations on the inside, Ailbhe Malone’s 101 Tiny Changes to Brighten Your World might also hit the spot. As I was searching through our collections, a lot of books on change often happened to fall into the massive adjustment, all or nothing category, which is daunting for even the most change-savvy people. Whether it’s work or friendships, 101 Tiny Changes offers just that- small, easily digestible things you can do to make meaningful improvements in your life without having to break the bank on your emotional bandwidth (and who doesn’t want to take a little pressure off?). Not everything in the book is going to work for everyone, but like Change Happens, there are enough bite-sized pieces of advice and well-meaning direction to cover something you might want to give a little extra care to in your life.

Lastly, and probably not a surprise to any of you, but my final delve through our shelves happened to be through the fiction section. Getting advice and ways to handle the waves that come at you in life (which, if you’re like me, sometimes feel like that one meme of Spirited Away’s No Face) from real people is all well and good, but that advice still comes with a level of uncertainty and a big dose of “what if?”. Can you actually follow through with any of it? So, sometimes, if you’re looking to change or have it coming at you like a speeding Ferrari, the best place to turn to is a character in a book who’s going through the same thing, and a character that ends up pretty OK by the turn of the last page. What I pulled off the shelf was not my usual fare for my reading habits, but maybe that’s changing too. For what it’s worth, Susan Green’s prickly demeanor and generally well-ordered life in The Cactus felt like a good and semi-relatable place to start. At least until the surprise death of her mother and an even more surprising pregnancy throw everything she knows into complete chaos. Plus, throw in having to contend with incompetent relatives and a disappointing will, and you have the makings of a change-filled soup. But at least from the reviews on our catalog, the soup ends up tasting pretty good by the last page.

And that’s where I’ll leave you, my change-averse crew, since, as it turns out, I’ve got a lot of extra reading to get through on my list this year. May 2026 bring you opportunity and change, but maybe only so much that you can digest at one time. Until next time!