For most people, change is bad. We react negatively when things are different than they were. For me, that’s especially true if you mess with my breakfast. I like the sameness of my morning routine, the highlight of which is my bowl of Fiber One cereal with skim milk. It’s delicious.

Of course, I didn’t always eat Fiber One. There was a time when my normal breakfast wasn’t Fiber One. For many years, instead of Fiber One, I had two eggs over easy, hash browns, dry whole wheat toast with apple jelly, and a cup of coffee.

Back in the two eggs day, I couldn’t imagine a change. I would eat that breakfast forever, I thought. Then something happened. I can’t even say what prompted the change, but things inevitably change. That’s just the way it is.

Now I’m as strongly attached to my cereal as I was to my eggs. Don’t change it, please.

The New Normal

Eventually, all change becomes the new normal. We think it’s going to take a long time to adjust, but invariably we adapt much faster than we thought possible. We do it over and over. We’re used to change, and we’re good at it, yet we nearly always resist it.

A bunch of things that felt like change back when we shifted now feel normal to us. We’ve adapted. You can adapt as well.

These are some of the changes we’ve made over the years. Each one felt initially like we were doing something big and dramatic. In retrospect, we were just resisting change. Looking back now, it’s clear that none of our changes were all that big a deal.

Here are some of the things we’ve lost as we changed:

Personal offices. We’re all working from home and doing most of our work remotely. It felt very odd to stop going to the office. Rolling out of bed (sometimes just staying in bed) and getting to work feels like a much bigger adjustment than switching from eggs to cereal, but it’s not. It’s just a small change when looking back on it. It’s no big deal. It’s my normal life now, and I can’t imagine having to go back to an office.

Paper. I was so used to paper. I piled it up everywhere, organized it, and then reorganized it. I didn’t think I could live without mounds of it being stacked up behind me on my credenza. Now the paper is gone (and the credenza is gone), and I’m just fine. My information is better organized and more accessible than ever.

Dictation machines. I loved the feel of the microphone in my hand. I loved the way the buttons would instantly roll me forward and backward. It was great to dictate my pleadings and have them come back looking nice a few hours later. Document assembly technology made dictation pointless. Document assembly products create better documents with less effort. Truth be told, I don’t miss my Dictaphone.

Telephone. I have vivid memories of propping the phone handset between my ear and shoulder, leaning way back in my big leather chair, and putting my feet up on the corner of the desk. The desk is gone, and so is the chair. The phone went away as well, and I speak to others through my soft phone on my laptop as well as on my cell phone. I’ve adjusted.

Books. Our library was awesome. We had all the reporters, statutes, treatises, and binders full of CLE material and newsletters. The room was lined with bookshelves so heavily loaded that they bowed a bit in the middle. The books were mostly replaced with online legal research. Some books were scanned and placed on our document management system.

Client files. How many hours did we spend looking for client files? More than we can count. The files were constantly moving from office to office, and lawyers were always being hounded about returning the files to the file room. When we went paperless, the files went away. The file hunting ended as well. I don’t miss the files.

Sprawling office space. We used to have huge spaces, large conference rooms, kitchens, work areas, break areas, kitchens, big lobbies, and all the rest. I enjoyed walking down the long hall from the front door to my office in the back corner. I felt good about myself sitting in a big office and looking out over the expanse of office space. It’s all gone now. We have no personal offices, our conference rooms are smaller, and our lobbies keep shrinking. Now, after adjusting, no one misses that vast expanse of space. We’ve got more than enough room to meet with clients when we come in from our home offices.

The server room. We had a room filled with computers on big racks. It got hot in there with all those machines humming, so we had an extra air conditioner pumping in dry, refrigerated air. Monitors glowed with cool graphs showing the status of the systems, and the Internet flowed in via a big thick cable. It was awesome. Now it’s gone. Our data lives in the cloud, and the air conditioner and special backup power supplies were sold. I still miss standing in that tingling electromagnetic field.

Change happens. More change is coming. I just hope I can stick with the Fiber One for a bit longer. There’s no stopping the change. Some of the things that we count on now and can’t imagine losing will soon be gone. We’ve adjusted to lots of changes already. We’ll adjust to those coming at us now.