Struggling With Change

All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is part of ourselves, we must die to one life before we can enter another another.-Anatole France

Change is something that many people want or will embrace whenever there is the slightest discomfort being experienced. This is a perfectly natural phenomena. However, another phenomena exists.
Many people want change without changing, but it is the changing that produces the change that we want.

The doctrine of change entails that you have to change what you don’t want to, in order to get the change that you do want.

Many of us would probably agree that it takes strength to change. Whenever we are confronted with the need to change habits, or way of thinking to better ourselves, we come up against tremendous inner difficulty and opposition within ourselves. We find ourselves fighting against our own status quo. Whether it is changing our diet, losing weight, or attempting to revive a relationship, inner opposition can sometimes be fierce.

In these instances, we have decided that change is the right thing to do. We are in agreement as students of change in the answer and goal, but remain in conflict with our own built-in status quo. Consistency is ingrained in our human make-up. However, so is growth. Avoiding pain and discomfort is also part of our human makeup. However, so is a hunger and the need for progress. 

Change is immortal. A universal force perpetually imposing its will upon all creation. The flower. The butterfly. The seasons. Change is violent and aggressive in its application. This is a natural principle designed to initiate what nature has demanded… growth...progress...moving forward.

Change will always come with conflicts. Whether it may be natural changes manifesting in our environment, societal changes in community makeup, changing in government and political cycles, or in our personal lives as we first struggle with them in our psychological realm.
 

These are all types of changes that affect us and that we often have conflict with. We also struggle, fight, and reject change manifesting in these areas.

 

Although the end result of change may be pleasant, the  process of change is never fun or pleasant, but always come with various levels of discomfort until it is finally realized. This phenomena produces a resistance to change from within us, though it may be a subconscious resistance.

All change is not good, but all change is inevitable. How then must we cope with that which is not good?

How must we cope with change that will be  good but must run its course of discomfort and turmoil?

First, we must realize the truth of change, embrace it, and develop an appreciation for its process.

It may be hard for an egg to change into a bird, but it is much harder for an egg to fly than it is for a bird to learn to fly.

We must not only be able to embrace change and its discomfiting process, but we must be able to welcome it, hug it, and even grab it by the hand and walk with it.

Even an enemy is not defeated unless it is understood, and it is not understood until it is embraced.

Changes in our lives are like the shifting winds, one moment it is gentle, flowing in the direction we want it to go. The next moment it is harsh, blowing aggressively against our desired direction and on everything that we have on us to protect us from the winds.

Bruce Lee once said to be like water. Water is arguably the most powerful of the elements, but indisputably the most humble of the elements. Water flows serenely and submissively into any vessel, and into any direction it is led and becomes it, assuming its conformity. When water is not respected however, it is potentially highly dangerous and uncontrollable.

Let us embrace mentally the discomfort of change that we may eventually enjoy the comfort of what change may bring.
Let us grab the hand of the unpleasant changes that we cannot bear or control, walk with it, become it, that we may cause it to become us, and thereby conquer it.