But I Don't Want To!

"The only constant in life is change."

Sadly that quote, used by so many people it's hard to find an original source, is almost always accurate. But what I find so interesting is most of us know that, often quoting that very line, yet we are so scared and resistant to any change in our lives.

I remember moving from one side of town to the other when I was about to start 3rd grade. The idea of the move didn't bother me until the realization that first day of school that this place was totally different from what I used to know. I didn't want any part of it! I can recall the stubborn 8 year old refusing to sing the school song out of loyalty to my former elementary school. It seemed such a righteous cause!

In time, I got over it. I looked around and realized 'this place isn't so bad.'

So many of us act like a stubborn 3rd grader when faced with change. We can come up with a ton of reasons why we don't want the change to happen. Some of them might even be valid! But the fact remains, change happens no matter if we want it to or not. And what's more, we typically don't have any say in the matter.

I love rubber bands. (That also goes back to 3rd grade; I learned how to shoot paper hornets and still have some scars from some particularly painful ones!) They can be some of the most useful tools in the world. But only when they are stretched out. Until then, they are actually quite useless.

Change is going to stretch us. It might even be in a way that we've never been stretched before and seem like the worst thing in the world. It can feel like everything is new, which most of us don't enjoy! But it's not until a rubber band is stretched out that it discovers the purpose behind it's existence. From time to time, after being stretched, that rubber band will need to stretch slightly farther as it's now used to being pulled and under stress. It'd be useless after a while if it didn't get new tension applied.

The saddest part of any nursing home or older persons complex is that so many have settled into a routine (often of rest and sitting around) and have lost a sense of purpose. More and more research comes out everyday that without purpose, without reaching for a goal outside your comfort zone, it's hard to have a strong will to live beyond surviving.

Change is rarely fun. Think of a plant, if it grew to it's sprouted stage and then stayed the same it would die off in fairly short order. Stagnate things die. Changing things live and thrive.

Don't stay stagnant. Embrace the stretch. There's a reason for it.