Nothing on this planet stays the same throughout. Change occurs whether we are ready for it or not. The universe doesn’t wait for us to get comfortable. Darwin proposed that the life we see now too arose through a series of variations in the environment and hence fluctuations in the genes of the populations all starting from a common species of life about a million years ago. From single celled algae to a multi celled human being. When almost every day the nature is adjusting to a million little changes, why do we fuss about not being able to cope up with the constant changes in our lives?
You change. I change. We change every day, every moment. To say a person is a happy or unhappy person is ridiculous. We are a thousand different variations of ourselves every hour. A year changes you a lot. You cannot even imagine how much things would change in a year. Have you wondered what you would be or who all would be around you next May?
“It’s funny how day by day, nothing seems to have changed, but looking back, everything changed.”
While we are all cribbing about how fast everything is changing, how people change when they leave to settle in a new place, how your favorite TV show has just ended, how your school has ended, how things are simply ending, we are losing out on the new beginnings that come along with every ending.
We have built a wall around ourselves, as a defense measure for our comfort zone. We are living in a place where we are content with our daily routine. We are scared or change and constantly try to recover from or get things back to normal (what we deem normal) as quickly as possible from even a little change dumped upon us.
This is because we are not confident about our capability to deal with an unexpected change, so we put on a fake smile and wait for things to get normal. Even though the technologies have developed, man has mastered in almost all fields, our societal mindset still remains stagnant.
People have this perception that changes are bad. They feel that a man is supposed to stay the same throughout his life. If he is trying to adjust to a new personality or lifestyle, he isn’t supported by the majority for his new endeavor. This impulse to get back on track is responsible for our failure to sense and interpret the changes and develop healthy strategies to deal with it.
Instead of learning from our mistakes and taking note of the circumstances, we are busy trying to bury feelings and pretending to be just fine. For example, ageing is a natural phenomenon. But as soon as we notice some wrinkles or dark circle, we rush to get ourselves an anti-aging cream. We lose someone, we do every possible thing to keep our mind off them, and engage ourselves in some job or the other.
Yes, changes are confusing. Confusion immediately thrusts us into a world which makes us feel hopeless about ourselves. But what we really need to remember is that “change is not a sign that we’ve failed. It’s a sign that we’re still alive.”
