Yesterday, I began to remove the carpet in our upstairs. I was reminded how little there is holding it in place. Thin, inch wide strips of wood with tiny nails poking upward are attached to the floor and the carpet is pushed into them. These thin strips of wood are only found along the edges of the room. And that’s it. The underlay (the padding under the carpet) is attached with even less. A couple staples are found very sporadically around the edges. And that’s it. The room can be large, the hallway long, and still that’s it. Very little holds the carpet in place.

And yet, it does not move, shift, or turn lumpy.

The removal was easy. If I tried to start at the centre, I made no progress. But when I pulled from the edge, the carpet peeled away swiftly and all I needed to do was roll it up.

It made me think of change in two ways. First, how often are we ‘pulling at the centre’ wondering why we are not making progress? Look for an edge. And secondly, when we are trying to embed a new behaviour or progress, how often do we try to ‘lock it in place’ in countless ways rather than finding the key places to ‘attach’ it?

There is something about carpet that is simple, eveen elegant. Change can be this way to.

Photo by Tincho Franco