We may not love it, in fact we may not even like it, but sometimes, change can in fact be a good thing. Embracing that is crucial in order to live a happier more fulfilled life.
Mahatma Gandhi said that we should “be the change we want to see in the world,” but that is not the change I speak of here today. The type I’m referring to is when you’re walking along perfectly and content and life throws a curve ball your way. The type of change which in that moment can seemingly shatter your world, crush your dreams and expectations and drown you in a pool of sorrows. However, if you stop being an ostrich and take your head out of the ground at the first sign of trouble in your comfort zone, perhaps you will start to see that the apparently negative change could in fact bring about some positive opportunities. It’s all about how you see things.
In such situations, optimism is key. If one expects the worst to happen, chances are it will. We ourselves are our own anger, our own frustration, our own sadness and our own stress. We allow these feelings to take over us and make us feel down. If you let change bother you, undoubtedly it will. That’s just the way the world works. Be happy go luck! Embrace what comes your way. “When life gives you lemons... make lemonade.” Make the most of what you have, whatever the situation may be. Nothing in life is easy, after all, what fun would it be if it was. Don’t dwell on the negatives, look ahead at the positives.
For those who are afraid to move forward beyond a past that they were comfortable with here’s something to remember:
It’s important not to let the past hold you back but it’s also important to not get caught in the middle in a kind of inertia. Don’t resist change. Take every day at a time, facing new challenges head on. Remember Tom Hardy’s lines from Lawless, “It is not the violence that sets a man apart. It's the distance he's prepared to go.” Change may knock you down and out but what will make you stronger is not the blow that you take, but the fact that in the face of adversity you get up and rise again. Such is it with change, be it in your personal, professional or romantic life.
Here are a few reasons that change and learning to adapt can actually be good for you:
Change makes you flexible. Being stubborn and resistant to new things will make a normally stressing situation even more so. Change helps you be fluid and go with the flow. It trains you to better adapt for something not going according to plan or coming out of the blue and without warning. It strengthens your ability to cope with uncertain, fast-paced, situations.
Change makes you smarter. If things never changed, you’d never learn anything new. Every time you learn a new skill, even if it’s just how to adapt, you are that much smarter than you were yesterday. At work, change may come in the form of temporarily being given a different business role. Don’t stress about how you’re going to handle the pressure; instead welcome the opportunity to learn something new. Remember that if you do what you’ve always done you’ll get what you’ve always gotten. Where’s the fun in that?
Change reminds us that anything is possible. It’s easy to think that anything that’s stuck will always be that way (perhaps the career that won’t lift off the ground or the marriage that’s coasting on neutral). When you see things change though, whether it’s in your life or someone else’s, its encouragement to know that nothing stays the same forever. This can also sometimes be a reminder to us to make the most of each day that we have and spend time with the people we love, doing what makes us happy.
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