Change does not begin by breaking structures.
It begins by recognising which structure you are holding onto.
Real change feels difficult not because transformation is inherently painful, but because every environment you live in is a structure.
Your daily routine is a structure.
Your workplace is a structure.
Your social environment, your family system, your friendships —
all structures.
And structures have one defining property:
they feel safe.
We do not fear change.
We fear losing the safety that borrowed structures give us.
You have probably heard the phrase: “If you want change, you must break your structures.”
But change does not come from breaking anything.
It comes from recognising whether you have a structure of your own.
Because if you have no inner structure, you will always rely on external ones — and call it stability.
This is why humans stay in jobs they outgrew.
Stay in relationships that no longer function.
Stay in environments that drain them.
The structure is not holding you.
You are holding the structure.
And once you hold something long enough, even dependency feels like safety.
Think about how hard it is to quit smoking.
First comes the physical withdrawal:
the discomfort, the restlessness, the “How am I supposed to survive this?”
Then comes the psychological withdrawal:
your body asking for a cigarette during every situation where
smoking once offered structure.
After waking up.
After coffee.
After leaving the subway.
After the gym.
You did not crave nicotine.
You craved structure.
And the more years you repeated those patterns, the deeper the structure runs.
The same applies to life.
Your job radiates into your financial structure.
Your partner radiates into your emotional structure.
Your community radiates into your identity structure.
Everything is interconnected.
So when people say change is hard — what they truly mean is:
“I don’t know who I am without the structure that holds me.”
But that question is the beginning of transformation.
Because once you recognise the borrowed structures in your life, you can finally ask the only question that matters:
Is this my structure — or just the one I am hiding inside?