The Dichotomy of Growth and Change
Can a person change?
Even if they can, do they?
And far more importantly… should we?
Human existence is so much like those playful gusts that catch you off-guard on a lazy summer afternoon, don’t you think? One moment you are standing on the proverbial road of life, comfortable in the routine you have so painstakingly created for yourself and the next thing you know, life has zoomed past you. The gust of life dishevels more than just your hair. You look around and your well-set routine is in shambles, everything has changed. Things you were most sure about don’t seem all that certain now and all that you believed in, just doesn’t make sense anymore.
But unlike the beautiful sensation that a breeze parts with, life leaves with far stronger impressions in its wake.
Life is a whimsical tale of crazy, gushing winds through a bamboo forest. Terrifying and melodious at the same time. Unpredictable and ever-changing. But do constantly changing circumstances warrant constant changes in the person facing them? Change might be the way of life, but it need not be the way to live. Being adaptable to what life throws at you is imperative for survival, but staying true to yourself in the face of all that is thrown at you is what makes life more than mere survival. The beautiful tune of wind-chimes is as much the effect of their integrity as it is of their flexibility.
People don’t change because they can’t. You might try altering your habits, your outlook, your preferences, even your natural responses to things; but, eventually, they will all switch back to default. To change is to first invalidate the natural tendencies of your personality and therein lies the problem. The deepest and the most powerful trait of all things alive is their inexorable desire to exist. When you try to change yourself, you are basically trying to kill your fundamental nature. Obviously, there will be resistance. Your psyche will always foil your attempts of replacing it with some haphazard make-up of random qualities that you find temporarily significant. It’s really a battle with your inner self, trying to change who you are; and do you really believe you could ever defeat the very source of your own strength?
All the efforts towards the change of self are influenced directly by the volatility of human life. Our world is a crumbling bridge over an abyss. It doesn’t offer a moment of respite to stop and look at what we are leaving behind and where we are headed. When we are young, there is this constant discontentment with our present self that drives your desire to change. As we get older, relentless change becomes a necessity to keep up with this ever-transforming world. At some point, we run out of both — the youthful drive as well as the need to cope with our surroundings — and we realize that all those rigours of change were futile. All that’s left now is us and this unabating world, neither of which we recognize anymore.
But if it is wrong to change oneself, then are we supposed to die the same person we were born? Certainly not. Beyond the wasteland of stagnation and just before the wilderness of change lies an oasis — Growth. Before anything else, you must first understand that Growth and Change are starkly different concepts. As counter-intuitive as it may sound, change is neither integral nor a necessary part of Growth. Growth requires you to better understand your true self and not compromise on it.
Consider a simple example,
A person struggles to cope with his quick temper and is repeatedly implored by his dear ones to change his temperament. Even he realizes the detrimental effects of his angry outbursts on his personal relationships as well as his own health. So he decides to control his temper in trying situations and keep a check on his anger in general. What do you think is going to happen next? He will manage to repress his rage at first, perhaps, but that wouldn’t really be an improvement. At some point, all that anger he has bottled inside will burst forth and he will be back to square one, not to mention the extreme inner frustration he will have to bear till then. Change, you see, will always lead to inner torment and suffocation. Growth, on the other hand, is a liberator.
Honestly speaking, this course of action — Don’t like something? Change it — does have a natural sensibility to it. And it might even work, provided that the thing you are trying to change doesn’t reside within you. For your personality is a complex, intricately interwoven matrix of threads. Just like the kind you would find in an abandoned home infested with spiders. Except, each thread holding the web of your nature together is a human trait. Now, what would happen if you tried to change this structure by simply cutting off the threads you don’t like? Yep, it will all come crashing down.
I am not saying that this lattice of personality should be left untouched and unresolved. Your true self lies at the very core of this web and to reach there you have to untangle it. But that’s the trick; you must untangle, not sever. Where Change requires destroying the facets that you find unimportant, Growth involves understanding the origin of the issues you wish to resolve. Our best versions lie ensconced within ourselves. All we are supposed to do is chisel away the unnecessary and the unreal. Instead of wasting your life as an uninspiring mimicry carved by the circumstances around you, be the growth-seeker that paints the world with his originality.
Just start where you are, with who you are, and the path of Growth will ultimately lead to where you were destined to be as who you truly are.
