If You Hate Change, Read This.
Ah yes, the bane of all existence, the unwelcome party guest, our dear friend, change. Change is like a person I met at that one event, who always means well, but not someone I want a long lasting relationship with. And yet, somehow, I always find myself running into them when out and about. Unavoidable and sadly, indisposable.
Change is hard. There is no debate about it. It often happens when you least want it, and it forces you out of a routine you're comfortable with. I hate change, and I know I am not alone in my loathing. Otherwise, you wouldn't be reading this right now.
Whenever I am faced with a pending change, I often go into panic mode: I stress, overanalyze, get frustrated with the situation, then at myself, and finally, I admit defeat. However, no matter how much I try to prepare myself for the impending "doom," I am never actually quite ready for it. It throws me off balance, which can feel completely catastrophic. But hey, I'm still standing tall somehow.
"Without change, progress cannot be made." I can't tell you how many times I have rolled my eyes at that statement. I know that to some extent it can be true, but that doesn't mean I'm going to like it. I think the problem is when we think of change, we often focus on how it will affect us in a negative way. However, when I force myself to widen my purview, I realize that if my life hadn't change a year or even a month ago, when I really didn't want it to, I would still be the same person I was back then. Stagnant. And, to me, that is a frightening thought.
Life will never go 100 percent the way we want it to. Honestly, thank goodness it doesn't. Where would the fun in that be? Naturally, we crave stability, or at least to feel as if we have a say in what happens to us. But sometimes, we don't, we just have to roll with the flow.
Currently, I am dealing with a change in my life that has been challenging to take on. At first, it scared me, more than I'd like to admit, but, I've come to the conclusion that it needed to happen so I can start a life of my own. The way I want to live it. While the old me would have completely shut down the idea of enduring such a drastic change, the person I am now isn't being so quick to reject it. Rather than dwelling on how the change may impact the parts of my life that I love, instead, I am weighing how it will alter the parts I hate, and honestly, how I am becoming a better person from it all. That to me, is what I call progress.
My point is, my fellow change haters, is that we have to at least try to be okay with the fact that things are going to change. If we don't, we'll just be disappointed when the storm inevitably hits, because it will. You may get knocked down for awhile, but eventually, you'll find a way to get back up. I mean, you don't really have choice, right? I know it's hard and it may even feel like you're about to lose a lot more than you're about to gain, but be patient. Change is good. I may not believe that 75 percent of the time, but maybe, someday, that will change too.