Novelty

A number of words are used today to describe this facet of life, “the in-thing”, trends, fads, hip, fashionable etc. We come across new stuff almost by the second. But what does novelty actually do for us? Let’s look at this one in my latest article (pun intended).

“Emma was just like any other mistress; and the charm of novelty, falling down slowly like a dress, exposed only the eternal monotony of passion, always the same forms and the same language.”

– Gustave Flaubert, Madame Bovary

Who doesn’t love something new? Be it a gift from someone, a new purchase, a new hobby or a new neighbour (well, not necessarily). The point is, every single person I have met loves the idea of newness. The rush of doing, getting or being something new fills us with a sense of vital energy.

Now, almost all of us will agree that the energy and enthusiasm we gain in this scenario, in the moment, makes us feel that this new thing is bringing (or has the potential to bring) happiness in our lives.

But then, something happens.

Time.

Time causes the newness to float away and turn into familiarity.

And we all know the old adage, familiarity breeds contempt.

The new thing, that filled us with joy and vitality, suddenly becomes the subject of our ambivalence.

I would like to bring some physics to the conversation. We need energy for being active. And activity is required to create, and grow ourselves and all other important facets of life.

By this logic, to maintain the energy, the enthusiasm, all we need to do is to maintain the aspect of novelty in our lives. And hence, there are so many notions in all aspects that exist. Most of us must have seen or heard about such notions.

• “Keep your muscles guessing, try new workouts”
• “Always keep trying new things to be on top of your game”
• “Keeping the spark alive is very important to keep the relationship alive”

However, novelty, I believe, is a very misunderstood subject. Like most other subjects, novelty stands on its own as a factor for maintaining enthusiasm, but I feel if we succumb to our desire for novelty, we are overlooking the basic construct of time.

New is fun, right?

However, everything new will turn old sometime.
Striving for constant novelty is an endless chase.

Granted, novelty is great to get an initial burst of energy, but there is one more aspect, and commonly acknowledged school of thought. If we always focus on going for the new, shiny product out there, it does two things.

1. It prevents us from focussing on the existing, which is probably the most important
2. It breeds dissatisfaction, which results in ingratitude.

Also, if we think about it, it’s an endless cycle. There is no end to it. There will always be something new around the block that would potentially give us that initial sense of excitement.

Think about any business for example. No business in the world can run without an exceptional sales department. At the end of the day, the goal of a business is to make money. The sales department is responsible for bringing in the big bucks, which then go in as fodder to the business for it to run efficiently.

However, if the business exclusively focusses on bringing in new customers, without caring about the ones they have already brought in, it is a recipe for disaster. This way, it also impacts the ability of the business to find new customers, since its reputation in the market tanks.

Therefore, businesses have to ensure that their existing customer base stays happy with their products and services, while striving to increase their market share and set of customers.

I work in Customer Success, which is a discipline in the technology space. Customer Success focusses on nurturing your current customer base, making them as happy as possible, while sales focusses on bringing in new customers, who consequently bring in new revenue.

This is just the business side of things. Think about relationships as well. We see people break off with their long term partners just because “the spark wasn’t there anymore”. Well, I believe this is yet another fallacy of thinking. Commitment means sticking by someone no matter what, and that does include such dips in emotion.

(I am a way better business consultant than a relationship counsellor. Hence the difference in the heft of my explanations.)

As I do pretty regularly, I have a question to end this article. Businesses are super structured, and hence have different set of resources for focussing on nurturing the existing, while focussing on the new. How can we get this done in something as unstructured as life?

If you stuck around this far, thank you for your time. If you enjoyed this, share this with one friend of yours whom you think will benefit from reading this. Thanks for reading, and I will see you in the next one. 🙂