"Master of Change"

Homeostasis was the predominant way of considering change in the context of human health and flourishing for the last 170 years. Allostasis, however, is more recent and comes from the work of two scientists, Peter Sterling and Joseph Eyer, who coined the term after observing that long-term stability comes as a result of changing, at least to some e

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Either way, the upshot of the expectations research, for me, anyway, is during a period of change, be it big or small, I need to constantly be asking myself if I’ve updated my expectations to match reality, or if I am clinging to old expectations.

Allostasis is also more accurate because the truth is you almost never get back to where you were — and when you try you often end up suffering. And while allostasis is becoming the predominant model for thinking about change in the research community, it hasn’t really been applied to laypeople with our everyday concerns. I think it should be, beca... See more

BS : I used this story to tee up one of the central questions the book asks: What does it mean to have a strong and enduring sense of self when everything is always changing, including you? I am fascinated by this paradox. We all want to be solid and stable, and yet we are also constantly undergoing these shifts to our sense of self. I wanted to st... See more