Things change, often quickly. Have you noticed? Whether it's weather, a death in the family, or a new idea. Maybe we even discoverer things we didn't know! Ashman and Mencken wrote in Beauty and the Beast: "tale as old as time, tune as old as song, bittersweet and strange, finding you can change, learning you were wrong."
You know this from your own experience. You know how difficult change can be. Elizabeth Lesser in her book Broken Open calls our attention to this: "life is always changing; we are always changing. We live in a river of change, and a river of change lives within us. Every day we're given a choice. We can relax and float in the direction that water flows, or we can swim hard against it. If we go with the river, the energy of a thousand mountain streams will be with us, filling our hearts with courage and enthusiasm. If we resist the river, we will feel rankled and tired as we tread water, stuck in the same place."
What have you done about change in your life? Some change is difficult, like a death for example, or others take on the challenges that mount as we return to training, or taking on a new hobby, or returning to school. I suspect some change is more difficult because it has an emotional attachment...tears, aches, fears, and worries. Other change, however, is a splendid opportunity to grow, to find something new, even to rejoice!
Thich Nhat Hanh, A Vietnamese Buddhist holy man wrote this prayer, "waking up this morning, I smile, twenty-four brand new hours are before me. I vow to live fully in each moment and to look at all beings with the eyes of compassion." I love it. Can I learn compassion? Can you?
Perhaps, however, the area where change is difficult but necessary is my attitude. Victor Frankl, the psychologist who survived the Nazi concentration camp, reminds us of this, "the last of the human freedoms is to choose one's attitude in any given set of circumstances." Sometimes change takes place in difficult situations. What do we do with what comes our way? Will we swim with the river, learning compassion, or tread water against it in fear? We can choose!
BLESSINGS.
