I've decided that it's time for me to embrace change. I need to learn to love change, expect change, pray for change, create change, and make change whenever and wherever exact change is appreciated.

Change in the workplace has been the theme of my life for the past year. New employees, different supervisors, updated paperwork, new procedures, and even a revamped company logo have been crammed down my throat, whether I like it or not. I'm not suggesting that all these changes have been bad; many have actually been quite good. But somewhere deep inside my DNA, there's a strand of nucleotides that, if you hold them up to the sunlight just right, will spell out the words, "Change is scary."

I am a creature of habit. I love calendars, planners, to-do lists, and Post-it notes, all of which must be kept accurate and up-to-date. I like rituals and recurring events: my weekly pick-up basketball game, my Thursday night television shows. I'm not a machine, of course - I do enjoy a generous pinch of the so-called spice of life, but I like it best when it's added to a delicious lasagna of dependability.

All of this change, good or not, takes an emotional toll on my fragile constitution. At the first sign of change, alarm bells go off inside my head. Threat level vermillion - prepare for the worst! I internally agonize over the myriad imaginable outcomes, each more dire than the next. As the dreaded change approaches, I mentally cringe and prepare for the horrible, horrible impact.

Fortunately, fact usually has little chance of outdoing my doomsday fiction, and I soon realize that I can live with this change - maybe even get to like it. While it's nice that my pessimistic fantasies don't come true, it would be equally nice if I didn't put myself through such torturous machinations in the first place. I used to have a quote taped to the wall next to my desk at home, and I wish it were still there. It was pulled down in one of my rare fits of cleaning, but lately I've been staring at that spot on the wall much like Jim in "The Office" kept staring at Pam's desk while she was away from Dunder Mifflin pursuing her art studies in New York.

I can't remember the exact wording, but it sticks in my memory as a key-to-happiness gem that I should be applying whenever change comes near. It's attributed to the Greek philosopher Epicurus (I think) and goes something like: "What troubles man is not life's events, but his interpretation of them."

Readers (and Epicurus and his Epicurean descendents), I apologize for what I'm sure is a gross misquote, but the meaning remains intact. It's what you make of a situation that really matters. I can waste my emotional energy by assuming the worst about an impending change, or I can decide that I'm going to accept it and make the best of it.

I can control a lot in my life, but I can't expect it to be blissfully absent of change. So it's about time that I made adapting to change one of my habits - and I'm sure I'll be a lot happier for it.

BILL ZUCK will still show up for basketball every Tuesday, rain or shine. You can reach him at wcz78@yahoo.com.