I once worked with an eccentric old character who had a scrolling screen saver on his desktop that said “Change is good. You go first.”
Smart. Funny. True…
But I’ve had my ass kicked by change… four downsizings, marital problems, going broke, my son’s struggle with Crohn’s disease and asthma. So it’s hard for me to see change as a good thing.
Change isn’t always welcome, but I believe that change is sometimes necessary. Maybe even when it is the least welcome. We all find ourselves in ruts, stuck between a rock and another rock, wanting to live one way but never feeling like we can quite pull it off. Sometimes change is a good cure for that… but oftentimes, it just knocks the breath out of us.
The harder I try to control my life, or the lives of those around me, the less I accomplish.
Some people say “give it to God” and others just live angry. I ride the fence. I admit it. I relinquish some of my desire and will to chance and fate. I have lived long enough to know that plans, like rules, are made to be broken. But rarely do I go down without a fight. Protest is just in my nature. I rebel, scream and cry, get angry, throw things and just do that human thing we do when nothing goes our way. I melt down. Just not as often as I once did.
I have learned a bittersweet lesson in acceptance. The relief of just letting go. It certainly helps to quiet the soul, even if we aren’t completely through cussing through our teeth. There is something calming about saying to yourself, “Okay, this is how it is. I can deal with it. What do I do first?”
This is where most of us find ourselves calming down… because after we have accepted something, even something painful, part of being human is trying to “fix” it… taking charge, attempting to improve the situation, trying to make it better.
The toughest things in my life right now are the changes my body is going through, accepting that I’ll probably never have another baby, and my most recent job loss. I turn 44 next February. I am tired and broke.
Most of us cannot watch the seasons of life go by and feel nothing. We have to accept that the ONLY thing we can control is our reaction to what time brings.
Even though change is hard, it is also good. You want to go first?
Feedback