Pathwalking 129
Nothing is unchangeable.
There is no situation, no circumstance, no event that cannot be altered in at least a minute manner.
The trouble is, we have been led to believe that most things are static. Tigers cannot change their stripes and whatnot.
Let me reiterate – nothing is unchangeable.
I have come to believe that what it boils down to is four things. Identifying the need for change. Desiring the need for change. Acting on the need for change. Ultimately, changing.
I am sure that it will come as no surprise that this is not easy. However, easy or not, it is not outside the realm of possibility. We can make a change. It may be small, it may be vast, but there is always a choice, always an option.
Sometimes it feels like it does not matter. Sometimes it feels like no matter what you do, what you try, what effort you put forth, change will not happen. However, it can and will. Some change just takes far more time, and a wide variety of efforts.
A key to change is, in fact, feeling. It has come more and more to my attention of late the incredible importance of feeling. It is all well and good to think through a situation, but to make anything happen, to move from one situation to another, to make ANY change in your control, you have to feel it.
It is easy for some to feel but not think, but I have always been a far greater thinker than feeler. I know what change I want to make, I know intellectually what it will take to effect that change…but when it comes down to the emotion and positive energy necessary to actually generate that change, I get stuck. When I get stuck, I start to feel negative and the cycle of inaction continues.
How do you break this? How do you change the seemingly unchangeable? The four steps broken down individually I believe look something like this:
1). Identify the need for change. There is something in my life that is not working. I need to identify if this is something I CAN take control over, or if not what aspect of this something is within my control. It is too easy to only see an over-arching something, and not the individual point or points that you can most easily control. It requires analysis, it requires thinking. This part does not require as much emotion, though the idea of the need for change should be to help generate more good and happiness and positivity in your life.
2). Desire the need for change. This is almost pure emotion here. You cannot just want the change you have identified that you need to make, you have to WANT it. This is not just a half-way, if-it-happens-or-does-not-it’s-all-ok matter, you need to desire change. You need to preview in your heart how this change will make you feel, and what it will mean to you once it has been affected. When you want change, you will find it far easier to create and move forward with that change.
3). Act on the need for change. This can be the hardest part of this process. Change that you are in control of requires action. Action for some people implies work, and that can generate all kinds of frustration and other ill feelings. However, if you have identified a need for a change, and you desire that change, then you have to make actions in order to create change.
It is so very easy to just let life happen. It is so much easier to let nature run its course. But when we want and need and desire change, it is up to us to make changes. We can take control, we can make it happen in our own way and our own time. This requires action. Sometimes it’s a small action, sometimes it’s a whole lifestyle shift. But acting on the need for change puts you in control, and lets you be the creator of your own path to walk. Finally:
4). Change. This might seem really obvious, but just because you have taken the previous three steps – identifying the need for change, desiring the change and acting on it, it does not mean that you HAVE changed. A one-time diversion from a habitual manner does not a change make. Taking all the steps but not actually changing that which you identified and desired to change happens so very frequently. For example, let’s say you know that you need to lose weight and get into better shape. You identify the need to change, and you REALLY desire to make it happen. So you join a gym, you buy organic food and plan to shift your diet. But then you don’t go to the gym, and you continue to eat processed, unhealthy food regularly. Thus – no change has happened.
I set out to read and write daily some months ago. For quite some time I was a champion of this, and I was reading and writing fiction daily. Overall, this has become a habit, even though I do still miss a day here or there. But I am no longer going months between working on sections of my fictional stories, and I am getting through far more books and experiencing other authors more than I have in years, and I am very happy about that. I saw a change I needed to make, I desired to make it, I took necessary actions, and I made the change.
Nothing is unchangeable. There is no situation, no circumstance, no event that cannot be altered in at least a minute manner. Once you identify the need to change, desire that need, take action and then change, you can choose the path you most desire to walk in life. Think it, feel it, take control and live it.
Do you have changes you want to make in your life?
This is the one-hundred twenty ninth entry in my series. These weekly posts are specifically about walking along the path of life, and my desire to make a difference in this world along the way. Feel free to re-blog and share. Thank you for joining me.
The first fifty-two weeks (Year One) of installments of Pathwalking is available in print and for your Kindle.
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