Look at where you were five years ago. Now, look at yourself today. How much have you changed since then? Even if you don’t think it’s very much, I can guarantee you it’s a lot more than you think. This year is 2016, so five years ago was 2011, a time before Pope Francis’ election and President Barack Obama’s reelection, as well as the beginning of the lengthy recovery from the Great Recession. Many world-changing events have happened within those short five years, and whether you were aware of it or not you changed as well.
Change is like a prism -- it can put our entire rainbow of emotions on display at once. Changes, such as moving away to college or buying your own house, can make one feel both exhilarated and scared, as well as going on a first date, playing a new sport or going skydiving for the first time. Other changes are harder to adjust to, such as learning to live again after addiction or coping with the loss of a loved one. Finally, there are the changes that happen all the time and are so ordinary that we often don’t give them a second glance, such as the sun coming up in the morning, the seasons changing from winter to spring or my cat finding something new to claw up around the house (in case you’re wondering, it was the front of my bed, today).
Change is a tough nut to crack, there’s no doubt about that. Even tougher is the fact that no change is the same and every person reacts differently to every change -- leaving for college, for example, might make one person feel liberated, while her future roommate feels nothing but trepidation. The world, however, keeps throwing change at us every day, and as such we must constantly force ourselves to adapt and let go of many things we think of as normal.
The point of this article isn’t to make you feel down, as much as it might appear to. Rather, it's intended to inspire you to embrace these countless changes in your life. Some changes will be harder than others, of course, and there might be some that will take every ounce of power you have to get through. Other changes will be fun and will strengthen you more than you could have ever imagined.
You can go ahead and start embracing certain changes today -- try a new dish at your favorite restaurant, talk to the new person at your school or vacation in a new spot this year. Deviating from the norm is the best way to be less affected by the bigger changes that will happen in your life, and it will also broaden your horizons at the same time. New experiences keep your mind more alert while forcing you to learn more about yourself and what you’re looking for in life.
Traditions still play a large and necessary role in our society, and always will; there’s a reason we celebrate the 4th of July in the United States every year and visit our families during the holiday season. But to never change (worse, to never fix something that needs to be fixed) is to be unprepared for the inevitable. Change will happen, whether you want it to or not. As Greek philosopher Heraclitus once said, “There is nothing permanent except change.” You should make it your mission to be ready for it when it does come along.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, you don’t always have to face change alone. Lean on your family and friends when you need to -- at the end of the day, that’s what they’re there for, and you should take advantage of those precious connections you have in your life (and be ready to do the same for them).
I’ll finish with another quote, this one from C.S. Lewis, that is as true as anything that has been written on the deep and ever-present subject of change:
"It may be hard for an egg to turn into a bird: it would be a jolly sight harder for it to learn to fly while remaining an egg. We are like eggs at the present. And you cannot go on indefinitely being just an ordinary, decent egg. We must be hatched or go bad."
