How to Stop Chasing Stability
And how embracing change can truly save your life.
Much of our disappointments and worries as humans arise from a gap between our expectations and our reality. Furthermore, much of our expectations are actually predictions, formed in our minds, about what we think something is going to be like. These expectations are formed from our past experiences — what we think is possible, what we think is likely, what we think is impossible.
These expectations can help us when they are realistic — as they can help us prevent ourselves from pursuing unrealistic dreams and chasing after unobtainable fantasies. But, we must remember that the past is not a good representation of what can come next — history is not doomed to repeat itself endlessly.
What’s more common than stability is change — and our expectations can make it difficult to deal with significant changes to how we live our lives.
What does nature do when it is faced with an un-movable obstacle? It moves. What do we do when we face a big change? — either in the external environment that we live in, or our internal environment — We do nothing. We rarely act and adapt — and truly embrace the change.
Most often we pretend it isn’t happening — and delude ourselves into thinking either that things are still the way they always were; or, if we are forced to accept that things truly have changed — we complain that things are not as they once were. Nationalistic nostalgia comes to mind — when people who do not wish to admit that the fabric, culture and identity of their country is changing, and instead prefer to complain instead — and to argue for things to go “back to normal”.
The world is constantly in flux, changing with every action and every thought made by each and every human in every situation. And with the speed that everything is moving and changing, it can be dangerously tempting to want to cling on to the past. To settle in to a particular routine and environment — and to fear anything that threatens to change your status quo.
This article is trying to convince you to stop trying to control your life, and that the one skill which will make you the happiest is adaptability. Flexibility. Not stability — but getting used to change, and taking action to guide change in a positive direction.
Do not chase stability — you will never reach it. Do not resist change — embrace it. You’ll be much happier if you do.
