Change: the scariest blessing

As we traverse into Autumn, change seems abundant and inevitable. In all our lives. Still stings like a bitch though…

Change is change. Not always positive, not always negative, it’s a transitional state of newness, of the unknown, of little control over the outcome. Depending on your mindset, it can be extremely daunting and challenging to get along with. A love-hate relationship, it can swing either way. It could emancipate you, enrich you and grown you as a person. It could cause you a period of intense stress and anxiety, where you feel emotional and overwhelmed and powerless.

But the truth is, change is impartial: a necessary passage to progress through life. Unless you plan to stand still your whole life, change in unescapable.

Yet that doesn’t mean experiencing change is easy. I find it hard, extremely hard to cope with. My whole word is being hijacked by change at the moment: friends leaving to university, the pursuit of finding employment again, the house being decorated and in a state of constant destruction. Even returning to England after a long period of Mediterranean sunshine has been having its unwelcome impact on me.

But don’t get me wrong; it’s not that I hate my country. That couldn’t be further from the truth. Whilst abroad, I dreamt of the day I could see my friends, my family, could eat marmite on crumpets again one day. Though strangely, upon my return, I’ve had a hard slap-in-the-face of change, and it would be a lie to say I embraced it.

After years of legally enforced schooling, being used to my friends living in close proximity to me, having regular part time employment, knowing that the following year would be another year of education- something I recognised and understood the importance of, like was easy. Life was predicable.

Its no surprise, really, that after having all those familiarities stripped away from me, there’s a bountiful feeling of displacement in most aspects of my life. I know I need to find a job, keep in contact with friends at university, sort out redecorating the house, deal with unaddressed family strains. I know I need to carry on with my life. It’s just at the moment, life seems so full on unknows. Or, if I’m being rational, life is so full of unexplored opportunities.

Truth is, there’s no way to do life ‘right’. But fuck me, I wish there was. It would be a damn sight easier. The familiar maxim ‘nothing worth having comes easy’ resonates immensely, at this point in my life. Even if there was a ‘right’ way ‘to do life’, it doesn’t guarantee we would find fulfilment or happiness. Life would be comparable to some colony of auto-programmed robots, going through the motions to simply go through the motions. Which would be pointless.

So I guess what I’m getting at is that change is necessary to reach fulfilment. You have to make mistakes, do shitty jobs, fall out with people to make right decisions, find less shitty jobs and discover unknown friendships. Change is the only pathway towards the future.

Standing still is not viable. We have to go through change; carry on moving forward, towards brighter days and brighter opportunities to grow as people, even if the brightness seems a little far away and dim sometimes.

Nothing worth having comes easy

Theodore Roosevelt