Can You Choose How You Handle Change?
Yes. But what that looks like depends on your actions.
I write this frequently: The one and only constant in the universe is change. Change is inevitable. It can, will, and does happen. Sometimes it’s so slow that you hardly know it is ongoing, but it is. Other times, it’s so abrupt you can hardly believe what happened. In either case, for the most part, change in and of itself is neither good nor bad.
Another thing I write frequently: Most change is outside of anyone’s control. The weather, anything initiated by other people, reactions, car accidents, getting fired, and death tend to just happen with little to no rhyme or reason. No matter how much you plan, the steps you take, the work you do, change can throw you off and derail your life.
Some people attribute this to forces outside our control. Maybe that’s the case, but that doesn’t mean you have no power. How you react to change, what you do to work with it or against it, these are yours to handle.
Can you choose how you handle change? Yes, but not necessarily how you think you can. It’s not change itself you have control of. It’s what you do in reaction to change.
You control yourself
Every single person on Planet Earth has an individual mind. That means that there are 8,000,000,000 (eight billion) individuals with a singular mindset/headspace/psyche sense of self. And nobody but you can see from your eyes, hear from your ears, smell with your nose, taste with your tongue, or differentiate temperature and texture through your skin. Additionally, from what your senses glean, nobody but you can interpret these when coupled with your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions.
Why does that matter? Because sensory input coupled with your conscious awareness is how you know and decipher life, the universe, and everything.
Because you alone are in your head, heart, and soul, you are ultimately in control of yourself. The vast majority of that control manifests as internal, intangible things. Specifically, you can and do control:
- What you’re thinking
- How and what you’re feeling
- Your intent/intentions
- The positivity or negativity of your approach
- Your actions
When things happen – good, bad, or otherwise – you have an initial reaction that sparks thoughts and feelings. That’s ingrained and the product of your life experience. After any given initial reaction, however, you have the ability to choose and/or decide to change it.
For example, let’s say you get into a car accident, and your immediate reaction is anger. That could carry you through the next steps post-accident, OR you could pause, reflect, apply reason, and choose a more neutral emotion.
That might not seem like much, but it’s everything. Controlling your emotions empowers you to apply reason and logic to handle change.
How do you choose to handle change?
It all comes down to choices and decisions. Specifically, conscious, active choices and decisions.
When you’re consciously aware, you have placed yourself at the controls of your life. You can now examine and then alter your thoughts, feelings, intentions, approach, and actions. With that, you can guide your life as you desire.
When you find change has happened or is happening, you can make choices and decisions, here and now, to work with it, against it, or around it. And yes, you can ignore it and just let it happen, but don’t be shocked when doing so leaves you feeling disconnected, irked, and like you ceded all your control – because you did.
The only genuine control anyone has over anything at all is themselves. You are the only one in your head, heart, and soul. Ergo, you’re the only one who can control all those inner elements. This is done by applying mindfulness.
Mindfulness is being present, here and now, and taking charge of your current mindset/headspace/psyche self. From there, you can choose how you handle change.
Fast or slow, expected or unexpected, change happens. And it’s nearly always impartial in and of itself. When it happens, you get to choose to handle it. Or not.
How? Look within. Observe how the given change impacts your thoughts, feelings, and intentions. When you recognize this, acknowledge it (recognition is all well and good, but can lead to ignoring it without acknowledgement). Now choose your approach and actions.
When you don’t handle change, it’s probably because you made no choices or decisions regarding it. Given the frequent, unexpected nature of change, this is natural. But not handling it isn’t permanent.
Handling change now is better than not at all
There’s an often quoted, maybe/maybe not Chinese proverb that says,
“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”
The point of this is that little to nothing is permanent and set in stone. You were born, you are living now, you will die. You are not permanent. Nothing is permanent. Why? Because of change.
Hence, maybe a change caught you off guard and left you reeling. You made no choices or decisions and didn’t handle it at all when it occurred. However, that was then. This is now. You can make new choices and decisions and handle change.
Another aspect of the impermanence and constancy of change is that how you might have handled it in the past is different from how you handle it today. To some people, that’s infuriating. Impermanence is frustrating and distressing. That feeling, that approach, however, is a choice you get to make.
Can you choose how you handle change? Yes, absolutely. And handling change, whatever form it takes, empowers you. When you’re empowered, you can take charge of your life experience. The more you’re empowered, the more you can live your life on your terms.
Easy? No. Worth it? Yes. Since it’s your life experience, and you alone are living it, doesn’t taking what control you can – and handling change – seem like a good idea and worthwhile for your life?
This is the seventh-hundred-thirty-ninth (739) exploration of my Pathwalking philosophy. These weekly essays are my ideas for – and experiences with – applying mindfulness and positivity to walk along a chosen path of life to consciously create reality.
I share this philosophy because I desire to make a difference in the world and help as many people as I can to find their empowerment with conscious reality creation.
Thank you for joining me. Feel free to repost and share this.
The first year of Pathwalking, including some expanded ideas, is available here.
Also, please check out my author website for the rest of my published fiction and nonfiction works.
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