Change your couch

I will never forget the day we decided to get rid of our couch. Since the day my my children were born, they had never known another couch. It was a leather sectional and fortunately for us, had lasted for that many years. One day, I decided to surprise my family and buy a new couch. It was exactly the same as the old one, only brown instead of the beige. I had the couch delivered while they were at school, so as to surprise them when they came home. Shortly after 3:00PM, I received a call from my wife. In the background I could hear all three kids crying. They were devastated. They wanted the old couch back, holes and all. They loved there old couch. The way it looked, the way it smelled and especially the way it conformed to their little bodies. Even though the oldest was only 7, I was baffled.
What I came to realize that day, was that we can sometimes become so comfortable with our lives, that the smallest change can throw us for a loop. I realized that since life is forever changing, It would be imporrtant to expose my children to more changes, so that they would have better coping skills for change in the future. If their world was turned upside down by changing a couch, what would happen in life, when they had to change homes, schools, jobs, cities, etc…. Lastly, after explaining to them how much better the new couch was and seeing them eventually come to realize this, I realized that change can be a great thing, even if it doesn’t feel that way in the beginning.