Ugh, change.

These are indeed amazing times we live in, what with the new president, France liking us again, and...all the great new shows on TV this fall, right? I know, could they be any worse? Oh sure, we'll get a chuckle from Kath and Kim, maybe half a grin out of Life on Mars and that's it. It's a fall season like every other fall season, so––no disrespect to Mr. Dylan––but the times they are only a changin' a wee little bit at time.

That's because change is hard. My mother-in-law came oh so close to voting for Barack Obama. She went on a right wing diet, cut out Fox News and everything, but then, in the final days before election Tuesday, the urge to find the best answer succumbed to the reinforcement of old beliefs, and she clicked back to the meat and potato excesses of Bill O'Reilly.

Change is really hard. I keep thinking I'm going to meditate every day, you know, to avert the same stressful whirlwinds that I have been sucked into in the past, and yet I struggle with the discipline. I think I need Vince Lombardi to follow me around for an entire week and bark out orders to stick with my regimen. Yes, that would do it. But that's not likely to happen now, is it. How convenient to feel only a dead coach would keep me in line.

And in the ad world, as much as the industry has evolved, we still have Billy Mays. You know Billy Mays. He's the seemingly ubiquitous pitch guy, that incessant, grating pitch guy for Oxy Clean and Orange Glow that yells and sells, "It works!" in the same way that salesmen sold snake oil 150 years ago. Yes, change doesn't come easily.

I recently read The Happiness Hypothesis, a book by Jonathan Haidt that explains how difficult it is for people to change and do the things that make them happy. How difficult it is to cure hypocrisy because we can rarely convince ourselves that there is a problem. How we are vulnerable to scandals and gossip because they make us feel––let's face it––morally superior. How difficult it is to simply see something new as something good because our brains are sensitized to react to new sensations as violations and threats. It's nearly impossible to change our tendencies by sheer force of will. 

So it makes me appreciate the election results even more. It shouldn't be surprising that it took relentless focus, demanding of the Obama team that they never veer from one theme, one idea to turn the tide. We ad people yammer on about sticking to one idea all the time––we know how tough it can be when you're tempted to react to every offensive launched by the competition and every little sales blip. Contrast that to Obama, who, over and over again, harped on "change" because that's what it took to make a majority hopeful.

It also took something else––optimism. Inherently, I think, people know––or at least want to believe––that hope and positivity and goodness is the best way to go. Cognitive psychology tells us that negativity is often the result of distortions. Surely when the negativity was in full mud swing, how many people began to wonder about McCain's agenda? On the other hand, optimism is purity and clarity. Obama's confidence was therefore unaffected.

It was remarkable. Regardless of whether you believe in Obama's politics, you have to believe that his effectiveness is enviable and truly inspiring.