Change

It has been said that we can start our day over at any moment; that today is the first day of the rest of our lives, and that a journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Each of these ideas point out that we have the freedom to choose again at any moment; that we can begin to make our selves anew whenever we choose. For those ideas I am grateful because they remind me that when things are not going as I would like, that I can choose again; I can find a different path; I can try a new way.

Mid summer is not usually a time associated with beginnings, but changing now is proof that we can start over at any moment, for any change is a beginning. A change is a start of a path that is different than the one we were originally on, no matter how trivial the difference may seem at first. Even if this different path supposedly takes you to the same place as the original path. Is it not the journey itself that matters most? Is it not what we experience along this new path the point of the change, not where we end up? This is why I believe different paths can never lead to the same place, because the person we are when we arrive is different; our perspective is different than it would be had we taken the original path. Since we are different, then the place we arrive is different.

The details of the change are also mostly irrelevant. Instead, it is the direction of the change that is paramount. Does this new path you have chosen, this beginning, serve you? Is it what you see as best for you at this moment? Sometimes, maybe even most of the time, we may not know the answer to these questions at first, at the beginning. We may feel compelled by a vague force to alter our schedule, to try a new hobby, to simply do the things we always do but to do them in a different order or in a different way somehow. I urge you to follow that force, to heed that subtle suggestion, be courageous and follow the instinct into newness, even if it seems trivial at first.

I have spent most of my life trying to improve who I am. Seriously, most of my life, I have spent countless resources trying to be a better man, a better son, a better lover, a better whatever. I have had so many beginnings it seems like change has been the only constant in my life. I now see the truth in that. Life is change, and change is good no matter how it may seem at first. All of my attempts at being 'better' have not been failures, but preparation, learning experiences, I needed to be where I am right now, still changing. I have experienced that successful change comes in small increments, since such changes are easier to stay with, to accept and to maintain. In the past I have tried to be a different person overnight, to change everything at once. Those experiences were not failures even though the change I sought did not occur, because a much more subtle and lasting change did. The realization that small, incremental changes over a period of time are what lasts.

So I find myself making adjustments again, being who I am. I wish the same for you. May you go with the flow of things. Be not afraid of change; embrace it.