The Dictionary definition of change reads: “The act or an instance of making or becoming different.” They say that two things are certain in life and they are death and taxes but there is one more thing that is as certain and as all pervading and that is change. In fact, it is said, and wisely so, that the most constant thing in life is just that, change. Death comes at the end of life as a reward or as just the natural result of a life spent, well spent or wasted, as the individual sees it. A reward, if you choose to acknowledge the divine plan and that death is part of that plan, is the very natural result of a life ‘well spent’. Those who believe in that view also accept or believe that death is not the end of the experience but only of this earthly phase. So in that case a change takes place, but I digress, more on that later. Taxes, on the other hand, are of course a fact of life, a burden, an annoyance and a responsibility we must bear as part payment for being allowed or able to live the good life.
Change – constant and all pervading, encompassing all that we are all that we do, all that is, and pretty much every aspect of our existence. There are, of course, all sorts of changes we experience, all manner of change that we must endure in order to get through a day, a week, a month, a year and indeed our life. Some changes are so subtle that we are never really aware of them and just how they affect our lives. Some we see or become aware of through the daily news. Prime example, political current affairs and shenanigans – and we are only too aware of how they do, or will, affect us now and in the future. Some changes are just like that, in that we can readily see what the outcome or result of the changes will be or we can have a calculated guess at the probable outcome. But then, of course, there are those changes which we find it impossible to predict or envision the outcome. These are usually those that come, as it were, out of nowhere and are the least expected at that particular time.
All too often our reaction to these unexpected events is: “Geez where did that come from?” or “This couldn’t have come at a worse time” or “Just when I was getting ahead, this has to happen” or words to that affect. These situations are sometimes really hard to understand and accept because we hastily evaluate them on present circumstances or the state of play in our lives at that particular time and the way our life has been going to date. Sometimes things happen to change our lives that, at the time, go against our own plans for ourselves. How many times have we been cruising along operating within the framework of a well thought out and (to date) well executed plan when all of a sudden, seemingly out of nowhere, an unforseen occurrence hits us right between the eyes and knocks us for a loop. All of our best laid plans and expected or desired outcomes are thrown out of the window. The plan that we conceived for our own lives, has now been rendered completely null and void by this uninvited and unwanted intrusion. Of course, our first reaction is usually one of anger and annoyance at the unexpected. We didn’t plan this, we didn’t want this, and we didn’t need this to happen.
Our plans are now thrown into disarray and now we are back to square one or we now have to re-think our whole strategy. Somehow we have to dig our way out of this mess that has been thrust upon us through no fault of our own. All this is totally annoying, frustrating and seemingly for no good reason – but therein perhaps lays the lesson.
I personally believe that life, the Divine, throws these changes at us so that we are constantly forced to grow. We survive because have to. We are equipped with the mechanism to do just that. We survive because our strongest instinct is to survive – it is inbuilt and is the one thing that allows us to battle from day to day and live to tell the tale. We get through these changes because we are meant to. We are constantly being asked to grow and be part of the living experience and sometimes it may be that we have become lazy or too comfortable in our own lives and have forgotten to look for the real wonderment in our life on a day-to-day level. So the Divine steps in and saves us from ourselves by upsetting our plans and causes us to adapt and survive by being forced to embrace a new and unexpected situation. Ours is not the great wisdom but we can learn to catch glimpses of it if we are alert and open to all that is being ‘taught’ every day in the ever changing world we live in.
The wisest and most spiritually aware, the most spiritually conscious human being that I have ever met showed me this simple and structurally sound ‘truth’. Change, he taught, is one of the true gifts of the Divine, one of the great experiences of living. I remember him talking about it in this way:” Picture a rock in the desert, every day the sun shines on it. Some days the wind blows over and around it and sometimes the rain falls on it. Every day it is changed ever so slightly, so slightly in fact that you or I could never see that change but in one million years from now that rock will be smaller, a different shape but it will still be that rock. Such are some of the changes in the natural realm, some changes are not meant to be ‘seen’ by the eye of man only by the eye of God.”
Then there are the changes that are given to man as a gift. Some of those changes we experience are those that we don’t see but feel, for example, a mid-life crisis (more on that later) and some are clearly evident; a death in the family, the loss of a partner, the ending of a romantic relationship due to one party falling out of love and moving on, or an argument so bitter that it destroys a friendship forever. These are the changes that will and do shape us. Pain causes growth and it is how we deal with our pain brought about by changes that will define us.
I strive every day to roll with the punches, to surf the swells, to go with the flow and ebb that my life brings me. I work at my faith in the Divine and it works for me as I do. So my advice is firstly to find that which you can believe in and work to have that be your truth. Keep the faith brothers and sisters. The road will be rocky and danger waits at every crossroad but the rest at the close of each day will be our reward. Go with your God.
Your friend, Angry.