Learning to flow with Change
Once upon a time, a wise old teacher told me :
Change is the only constant. Learn to accept and respect it.
These words are true indeed! There is change happening all around us, all the time. If we look closely and pay a little attention, we will discover that nothing is permanent in this world. Whether it’s our own bodies, our emotions and thoughts, our possessions, or the dynamics and relationships we have with people around us. It’s all forever shifting and evolving, either for the good or bad.
Taking our thoughts and emotions for example, one moment we think about something and the next moment about something else. Even when we are thinking about the same thing, our thoughts are not exactly the same through time. The same is true for our emotions. One moment we feel love for someone and the next because of some reason, we tend to hate and avoid them. We start to feel differently about them. There is a shift in our perspective caused by some incident or observation.
Our wants and desires are also constantly changing. We aim to accumulate more wealth and possessions than we currently have. We feel that once we have enough, our thirst will be quenched and our desires won’t change. But, as we inch closer to our immediate goal, we find a long road ahead of us, leading to another bigger goal. That’s life, constantly throwing bigger challenges at us, keeping us forever hungry for more.
Similar to change in our own thoughts, emotions, perspectives and desires, people around us change too and it affects us. It may be change in priorities of our partner, who has lately started to spend less time with the family. Or, it could be our school-friend who has forgotten us after moving to a new city. Our kids’ behaviour towards us also changes as they grow up.
Due to the impermanent and fluid nature of our lives, we may feel like we are not in control and the change is overwhelming. We feel like the change is being imposed on us and we must accept it. At other time, we find our lives being too stagnant and changeless. We tend to ignore the opportunities to change and just complain about our boring lives.
At the bottom of both these problems, lies our resistance to acknowledge and welcome change. We discourage change because we like certain sense of stability in our life. Due to our closed minds and hearts, we tend to be overwhelmed by the changes while in some cases, tend to overlook the opportunity to change because we fear the unknown.
But, if we come to realize and accept this fact, which is true for us as well as for people around us :
Being human, our bodies, our thoughts and emotions, our desires, our perspective are forever shifting and that’s a good thing!
This realization can change our perspective towards life. Accepting this fact is accepting one of the realities of life and it brings us closer to peace and tranquility in our lives.
