Shift Happens

If you're in a bad situation, don't worry it'll change

If you're in a good situation, don't worry it'll change.                                           - John A. Simone, Sr., author Dealing with change in our lives can be the most daunting of challenges. Most of us find it difficult to embrace change, no matter how many times we've heard the axiom about change being life's only constant. When change knocks on the door, we loathe its intrusion. We are more likely to do battle with change; either fighting to hold on or fighting to let go. Why do we resist change so tenaciously? Change alters the reality picture and requires a new coping strategy. As one author wrote, "Life is like an ever-shifting kaleidoscope - a slight change, and all patterns alter." When life changes, we must make adjustments to navigate the new course. Most of us fear losing our way in unfamiliar terrain. With our fondness for predictability and control, we find comfort in the familiarity of the status quo, and cling to it. Yet despite our predilection to battle change, it is the nature of reality, as likely to arise as the morning sun. Indeed, shift happens, and will continue to happen and rock our world as long as we inhabit this physical plane. We can resist change, resist reality, but in the end, reality wins, every time! Putting it bluntly, resistance is futile and only increases suffering. Yet if we would find some measure of equanimity in the midst of change, we must ultimately accept the changes that surely will come, again and again in this life. As Alan Watts observed, "The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance." When we fully embrace, and enter the currents of change, then the headwinds of resistance subside. In the calm that comes from acceptance we make way for wisdom and understanding to arise. With a degree of acquiescence to our new reality, we may begin to understand the course correction. If we maintain this willingness to flow with change it can lead us to deeper understanding, and allow us to find inner peace despite an outer life that remains rife with uncertainty. No matter the rise and fall of the economy or any volatile worldly structure, there is a still point within you that remains constant and always accessible. This is the essence of you that is not subject to the ravages of upheavals, and remains a sacred haven even when everything around you is changing. My sense is that change is only going to accelerate going forward on the present trajectory of human/technological evolution. Realizing there are no fixed end points in this life, malleability will trump rigidity, and the truly happy of us will learn to surf the rising and falling tides of change.