Change, Change, Changes...

That was the name of a song way back in the day, "Changes". Change is a funny thing. It is happening all around us, just go look at your yard after a storm or your kids pictures. It is an integral part of nature; we have day and then it changes to night. We have summer and then it changes to fall, and then it changes to winter, and then it changes to spring, and then it changes back to summer all over again. Our bodies change, sometimes for the better, most times for the worse. Our outlook on life changes, we start as a teenagers thinking we know everything. Then we get older and realize that we don't know anything. As a young person our desires are to acquire things, and as we get older our outlook on life changes and we decide it is not more important to acquire things as it is to give things away. Change is all around us, inside of us and part of our makeup. So why is it so difficult for us to change?

1) Fear... We fear what we don't know. Think about it, you aren't really scared of the dark, you are scared of what MIGHT BE in the dark. The unknown is a scarey thing. It requires faith, it requires trust, and those are two things that we are very stingy with. Things that we know won't hurt us and are safe, while new things could be dangerous. But how will we ever know if we won't try? Remember when Henry Ford came out with the car? Everyone loved it, right? No, there were people who said that the car went too fast (30MPH!!) and that people would die if they started driving them. Horses were so much safer... yeah right!!

2) Comfortableness... if that is a word (it is now!!) We are creatures of comfort. We don't rock the boat unless the boat is filling up with water faster than we can bail it out. We like to be comfortable in our surroundings and with ourselves. Throw us into new surroundings that we haven't experienced and we are not sure we like it. Throw us into a new group of people that we have never been around and we are not comfortable. Think about when you went somewhere and people were speaking a language you did not understand. Did you feel comfortable? How about when they said something and they all laughed? Did you feel comfortable then? Absolutely not!! You just knew they were talking about you, and laughing at you... see we like to be comfortable. Change changes our surroundings, our friends, and our outlook on life.

3) Failure... we are all afraid to fail. I have heard that the greatest inventors of our time were failures many more times than they were ever successful. Think about this, Thomas Edison failed almost 2,000 times trying to make a light bulb work. But that one time it did work, Viola, there was light! You see, we are scared to fail just one time trying something new. The "way we have always did it" is a powerful suggestion to keep failure at bay. If our kids crashed their bike the first time they tried to ride and gave up, Scwinn, Mongoose, Huffy and all those other bike manufacturers would be out of a job. But we fell down, got up and tried again because we knew that we needed to ride to get somewhere. Many times we try a different approach because of failure and finally succeed in finding the right approach that is hugely successful. It is because of failure that we can grow, learn and succeed in life.

So next time you encounter change, embrace it, encourage it, and enjoy it, for you will most likely learn something and grow better for it because of it.