A monk went to a hotdog stand and said, “Make me one with everything”. The hotdog vendor gave the monk his hotdog and the monk paid with a $20 bill. After a few moments, the monk asked, “Excuse me, but where is my change?”. The hotdog vendor replied, “Change come from within”.
…then again, it doesn’t always come from within. Yes, we are responsible for our own destinies, and we can be the impetus for change in our world, but sometimes change happens to us, too. They say that there are three types of people in the world: people who make things happen, people who let things happen, and people who wonder what the hell just happened. Most of us are one of the three types, yet all three do happen to all of us sometimes.
Change comes gradually and suddenly, it comes with preparation and without warning, it happens to us and happens because of us, it can be managed and it can be out of control, it can be good or it can be bad, it can be what we want and sometimes it can be what we don’t want.
The irony is that there is one constant in life and that is change. Without change, we never grow, we never learn, we never experience, we never discover, we never go beyond what just is. A seed does not become a plant without change. A fetus does not grow into an amazing human being without change. Even a caterpillar, when going into a cocoon state, completely dissolves into a goo-like life-gel of sorts (gross, right?) before it completely restructures itself at the cellular level to become a butterfly, where not a single component of what it once was is part of what it has become.
Being comfortable is nice, as is the feeling of security, ease, and flow. Yet, without change, we cannot go beyond what we are today, we can’t evolve and we can’t do much else than stay stagnant.
There are a number of people in my life right now going through a great deal of change, including myself. It’s definitely not easy and it’s definitely uncomfortable. The parts that are logical and reasonable to the mind are easier to accept. The hard parts are those that hit the heart and the spirit, which is most certainly expected. Even good change isn’t necessarily easy because it is shadowed by uncertainty.
We are not supposed to lament the past, but celebrate it. We should not fear the future, but be excited for it. We ought not rush past the present, but be in each moment of it. We must not fight change, but be intentional about it.
A white belt becomes a black belt by changing himself from what he once was. A follower becomes a leader by changing her spirit, mind, and ways. There is no past or future without change.
“They must often change, who would be constant in happiness or wisdom.”
– Confuscius
In Between Degrees 