When I thought about this (and how many times in my life I had to face change's awful and graceful moments) I came to the conclusion, I've become an expert on the subject of change. Through trial and error and tribulation, I've managed to wash up and wash out with life's most harrowing and delightful moments. In this I'm not unlike you or you or you and even . . . you. Still, if there's any subject, with supporting details from life's experiences, that bears sharing among the human species, it is how to manage change.
Now I can hear the scoffers ask whether it's loose change or pocket change, but despite the frivolity lurking in mockery's halls, an understanding of the topic is the key for shooting this rapid we call existence. In fact, and this is my own personal observation (ye ol' IMHO), self-worth is defined in terms of how we manage change in our lives. If we bob around the sphere like a weather vane, blown by the wind, we're bound to be bullied by circumstance. However, if we make the same gyration like compasses with an eye on magnetic north, we can hold our ground and spit in the bully's eye.
The first thing to know about change is that it is . . . changeable — nothing truly steady or eternal. So to ride the bucking bronco of relocation, employment shifts, retirement, financial earthquakes, marriage, birth, death, spilled coffee and the passing panoramas of vacations come and gone (not to mention the heartbreak of psoriasis) we must find a place to ponder — to make sense of the senseless. You must find a place within yourself — within your imagination — a place that doesn't change. A fixed place. Retreating there, you can savor change like dishes at an Roman banquet, selecting and rejecting that which fits self cultivation. For me that place isn't a beer garden, but a quiet one — a place under a wisteria tree, where I can look up and see the sky through branches. Each branch is filled with blossoms — the sum of my life experience, and hung so I may consider their fragrance in the light of new challenges and opportunities. It's a place to take resolve.
So from under the wisteria tree, I emerge to share my views on change management and will try my hand at it over the breadth of this blog. I'll dispense good advice and bad advice and sometimes no advice. However, like all things known and shared, I have a legacy — a collection of nuggets stored beneath my sanctuary — a bastion monument warding off change's finality. My blog is new, but the subject is old, reflecting a myriad of possibilities afforded by change — the bully, if we let it push us around.
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Such deep thinking and well said (written). Thank you for sharing. However, I have one question...Do you believe in God? I am a born again Christian and believe that God is my ultimate master who has managed to change me to be a better person and grafted like a branch and will have eternal life. Would love to know your views and opinion on Christianity.
ReplyDeleteVery pertinent to the subject. However, I believe that the question is you ask is best ask to oneself. It's not a question I would think to ask another person. The diety changes with each person, and although one might argue that religious precepts are the rock that stay us — they are actually so varied among the species, it is a rock that splays us. Ah, you say. He's being evasive. Ah, I say, you are correct — and yet, not. The question is well meaning, but it was also the one asked by the Inquisition in an attempt to purify community. As to my answer — thank you for asking. Come back oftne and bring your divining rod.
DeleteOK, I'm back. Sad I missed being the first to post. Damn that no comments button! Anyhow, I enjoyed the read and just so you know, I have a huge wisteria in my yard. They remind me of my Grandmother. She had one that was always full of bumblebees. A strange little memory from early childhood. I loved that place, but it was not wise to lie under it (the bees). However, I did have one place I used to go when I was a teenager just to get away and think about how wonderful the future would be. A high bank over-looking an empty clay pit had three towering pines and I used to lie on my back looking up at those trees swaying in the wind. I'll be checking back to see what's new.
ReplyDeleteIt's amazing how our memories are triggered by the places we retreat for space. Also, most of these places give us a view of the sky. Of course, we think that by skywards we're looking up. But we are really "looking out." hanks for dropping by and come again.
ReplyDeleteEdward C. Patterson