You have a complicated relationship with change. On one hand, you welcome change you agree with. It keeps the future open for things you want. But you reject change for things you already have in place. Those you don’t want anyone to touch. In both cases, you’re judging. Likes and dislikes. Want and don’t want. You’re trying to control life.
But you cannot control life. Nor do you get to pick what kind of change you get. The irony is, this is nothing new. You’ve seen it happen over and over. Just when you think you have a certain aspect of your life under control, it happens. Change comes along and makes up new rules. Now you’re scrambling again to get things back in order. Sometimes change happens so rapidly, things aren’t even under control, and change is already swooping in again. You can already hear your inner monologue. Why does this keep happening to me? What am I doing wrong? I had the perfect plan! But life keeps messing it up. It’s seriously annoying!
You’re annoyed because you have this idea in your head that if you get life to follow your plan, you achieve happiness. You spend your days and nights manipulating your circumstances, trying to get life to play along. But it never does. And you’re never happy. Why??
You’re never happy because you’re always living for the future. You miss out on the only thing that’s real, which is what’s right in front of you. When you are lost in the stories of your judgments, you’re never really here. More so, the mindset of not there yet leads to seeing yourself from a place of severe lack. Your entire experience of life is defined by I’m not happy yet because the circumstances that make me happy are not in place. So you keep trying to put them in place and then keep them from changing. But things keep changing.
When you attach your happiness to life circumstances being a certain way and staying a certain way, you are bound to get disappointed. Life is in constant motion. Your body is changing. Your attitudes are changing. Nothing about life is made to stand still.
But your judging habit tries to make life stand still. You think there is an end goal, a permanent state to achieve. You think you have to make life happen. You think if you don’t make things happen, life stands still. Or worse, it passes you by. So, you try to control and influence your circumstances to match your plans. You judge everything as either for or against you. You are fighting with life.
The judging life is an endless rollercoaster. Sometimes you’re up, sometimes you’re down. When you’re up, you fear being down. When you’re down, you wish you are up. Throughout it all, you’re never at peace. You can always feel a low simmering agitation. You never find that place of permanent joy you so long for. Your whole life can go by chasing after a version of reality that only exists in your head, and trying to make the world bend to it. Throughout all this chasing, you never feel like you are truly you.
Few things can trigger you as change can. But that’s the point. Change is vital to your growth. Change is growth. When you feel triggered by change, it’s an opportunity to become aware of your judgments. That’s how life is designed to work. That’s how you discover who you’re designed to be.
Embrace change. It is the engine of life. It is the driving force behind your journey.
Where in your life are you experiencing change?
