One of the most interesting psychological conflicts in life is the idea of going with the new or the familiar. Seinfeld said it best when he was frustrated with Kenny Bania’s inane conversations:
Bania: For our next meal, do you think we should come here, or should we go someplace else? You know it has its pros and cons. On the one hand, here, you're guaranteed a great meal. On the other hand...
Jerry: Yeah, yeah, I know. This would be good, but it would be the same. But if we go some place else, it would be different, but it might not be as good. It's a gamble. I get it!
So, what is going on here when sometimes you want something new and sometimes you want something familiar?
Well, you need new experiences for growth, so you will get an itch for new things when you feel like your life is stagnant. On the contrary, you need familiarity for safety, support, and the ability to focus elsewhere. This need for both is what causes the seeming contradiction of wanting things that are new and things that are the same.
The best example of seeking the familiar when the world is changing is when you have “the rock” that you rely on—a friend, spouse, or family member (not literally Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson) who is reliable and stable through turmoil. Routines help you to maximize growth because they help you to get through the mundane parts of your life as quickly and efficiently as possible, allowing you to spend more mental and physical exertion on new, important issues. Successful athletes, scientists, and businesspeople are all examples of people who rely on routines to develop their next incremental improvement in their professions. The predictability in other parts of their lives allows them to focus on development. This works for both working toward urgent, important goals and navigating through catastrophic setbacks.
The best example of seeking novelty is the spontaneous decision to change something about your life just to “shake things up” and see what happens. Changes include moving to a new city, dating a new “type” of person you wouldn’t normally consider, listening to new music, trying a new restaurant, or signing up for a new class to learn a new skill or hobby. This urge usually occurs when the inverse to a shock to the system occurs in your life: a repetitive existence of living the same day over and over again with nothing new or different. When everything in your life—e.g., the same food, job, routine, or other life experience—is nearly exactly the same for a while, you begin to seek out something that will change it.
Now, both of these instincts can lead to positive and negative behaviors. With familiarity, you can survive trauma with it, or you could stay in your “comfort zone” instead of trying something new that would benefit you. With novelty, you might discover your new favorite food…or you could spontaneously end a 15-year successful marriage because it felt “boring” and uneventful. This is why it’s so critical to understand what is causing the drive for the new or the familiar: you could make catastrophic, life-altering mistakes if you make the wrong decisions.
So, how can you avoid these major mistakes? A simple testing of why you are seeking the new or familiar can help you find a healthy, constructive avenue to meet that need. For example, if you are doing “GTL” (gym, tan, laundry) after getting traumatic life news, this is a good thing. The routine is helping you to emotionally regulate and prevent you from going off the deep end (assuming you’re dealing with it and not suppressing it). However, if you keep repeating your mistakes in relationships because of fear of doing something different, you might be holding yourself back.
The same works for novelty: there is nothing wrong with trying a new restaurant or going to a single cooking class to see if you like it. These are low-risk (as Seinfeld said, “It would be different, but it might not be as good.”) changes that might scratch the itch for something new. However, when it comes to a job, a marriage, or a move, there are many lower-risk changes you can make than the drastic type of changing everything at once.
Yes, you might be the person who needs a severe change, and that’s fine. Quitting drugs cold-turkey could be a phenomenal decision or cause you to relapse and overdose—only you can decide what’s right for you. This post isn’t here to tell you specifically whether to quit your job or get divorced tomorrow. But, what it does aim to do is to remind you that, if you are getting the itch, you don’t need to make a drastic change to see what is behind the desire for novelty. If it’s a stale marriage, try new things—buy flowers, go to a new restaurant, or plan a surprise party. If they don’t go well, your whole life hasn’t be turned upside-down, making it a much better way to test the nature of this feeling you have. Same thing with a job change: volunteer somewhere in the area of interest or take a class on it to see if you like it; that way, if you don’t, then you still have your current job to fall back on.
No matter how you proceed, the first step is to understand why humans tend to seek the new or the familiar. Once you understand that, when you get the itch, you’ll be able to pinpoint why you have it and what you can do about it. If you don’t, you’ll might be the next horror story of someone posting on social media that they made a grave mistake that they can’t take back. Know when, why, and how you crave the familiar and novel, and use them to your advantage to keep yourself from getting overwhelmed by change or bored by monotony, respectively.