photo via fkehren
As the leaves on the trees start to change, it’s a good season to think about change in our own lives. My life has been one of twists and turns and almost zero consistency, so accepting change has never really been a problem in my own personal life. For me, it’s been adapt or fail at life. As a result, not many curveballs thrown my way catch me off guard, and resistance to surprise is a pretty good character trait to have. It will make you resilient, like the trees that shed their leaves in the fall but bounce back, full-force blooming in spring.
It drives me insane when people say, “Don’t ever change!” Really, really insane. A you’re-lucky-I-have-good-self-restraint-because-I-really-want-to-punch-you-in-the-face-right-now kind of insane. Life is change. Change is life. When you ask me not to change, you’re effectively asking me not to live.
photo via victius
There are two quotes I’ve held near and dear to my heart for a very long time. One is the quote above, and the other is a Buddhist saying: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Compassion is necessary.” Change can definitely bring pain. But when it does, you have two options: mope; or go out and be the change. Embrace the change. To me, a fusion of the two quotes I love equals something like this:
“Change is inevitable, and sometimes painful. But when you accept both, you can move forward and you can begin to heal.”
That doesn’t mean we can’t question change. In fact, the book I Moved Your Cheese strongly suggests that we DO question change, as a sort of rebuttal to Who Moved My Cheese? (Both are very good, short reads, by the way. If you haven’t read them, it’s worth the 20-30 minutes it will take you to get through each one.) I agree with the idea we should question change. We don’t need to blindly move through life as the pawn of so-called “fate”. We can control our destiny. That doesn’t mean our path is obstacle free, but we do have the option of whether we’ll turn back around or figure out a way to get around that obstacle. The latter is more difficult, but it will move you toward your dreams.
My apologies for a shorter-than-normal post, but I’m being thrown a lot of curveballs at the moment and even though I rock at hitting every one of them out of the park, it’s still quite the workout.
Go forth and be okay with change.
xoxo,
E.D.F. 