Change, like making mistakes, is unavoidable

Happy National Tell an Old Joke Day!

I couldn't resist this joke when I came across it. Knock Knock jokes are old but, like the saying goes, an "oldie but a goodie."

Hopefully that got you to laugh or smile even (I'll take what I can get). If not, well you are entitled to your reactions.

Most people will experience it at one point in their life or another; whether they accept or deny it that is completely up to them. This word is only six letters long, but yet it manages to impact your day, week, month, year, or even the rest of your life. 

Change

Change (verb): to make the form, nature, content, future course, etc., of (something) different from what it is or from what it would be if left alone (cited from dictionary.com).

When many people hear this word, we have the tendency to run or deny it. Why? Well, it's fairly simple. We like routine and predictability, or at least most of us do. And when something or someone comes and mixes that up, we don't know what to do.

I feel like it's a natural human reaction. Something comes up, and the instinctual reaction is to run. This is concreted in even more when out parents teach us that when someone we don't know comes up us, we are supposed to run. Or when we come across something or someone scary, we run to safety. 

And I'm not saying there is anything is wrong with that. 

The thing that people forget that change is sometimes a good thing or it could be a good thing. Most of the time, all it depends on is how you react to it.

Another thing that scares people about change? It's hard.

Simba is right. Change is not easy and shouldn't be. Why? We get stuck in our "day in and day out" kind of routine, and it is a known struggle to break a habit, especially if it is a habit we are addicted to. 

Here's a shocking fact, though: we change every day, and we don't even realize that we are doing it. You don't wear the same shirt, pants, and shoes everyday for obvious reasons. Your hair is slightly longer than it was the day before. You walk a little bit differently than you did before you remembered you forgot to shut the window on your car and it started to rain.

Sometimes it takes a little bit before we realize that change. For example, your significant other breaks up with you. For a while it hurts like nothing else you have ever felt, but (most of the time) you learn to work through it. In the end, you (most likely) end up getting over it. 

A word that is often associated with change is grow. With change, we are forced to grow. 

Graduating high school? You are forced to grow by making the decision what you want to do with your life. 

Marrying someone? You are forced to grow along side of your partner. 

Being diagnosed with an illness? You are forced to grow and adapt how you live.

A family member or close friend dying? You are forced to grow and figure out a way with how you are going to keep living without them.

You see, we are all changing all the time. You weren't the same person you were seven, seven months ago, or seven days ago. And why would you want to be? 

Change may be inevitable, and you may hate it, but remember how you hated taking naps when you were younger and now you would do anything for even an extra 15 minutes.

Sheldon has a point. Sometimes change is not a good thing, because sometimes we don't always change for the better. We make choices, and sometimes our choices end up biting us in the end. 

But the best thing about life? Most of the time we are given second chances to redeem our actions. Will it make up for the pain or hurt? Probably not, but we must realize that there is even more of an unlikelihood of us getting third chances.

So. However you feel about change, know this: it's going to happen and what matters is how you deal or adapt to it.

Until next Friday,

Thought of the day