REFLECTIONS: Change

Just when you think you have life all figured out, some ridiculous freak of reason throws you a curveball. Romance, religion, right-and-wrong; all these are areas that are putting me in one devil of a quandary. Being pulled in one million directions simultaneously is not an environment conducive to much success in the decision making process.

The affairs of the heart, mind, body, and soul are all quite tricky in and of themselves. Add in a cacophony of constantly screaming inner voices and the din is so intense that one can hardly think clearly. It’s as if there are a gazillion radios in my head and they are all tuned to a different station. To pin one clear channel of reason down is like chasing quicksilver.

The chorus of conflicting emotions makes me scream out for a few moments of silent meditation just to become a little more balanced. To bring some type of harmony out of the sour notes that plague the many voices of reason that beg to be heard, but only on their terms of having your undivided attention.

Still, you are bombarded by the millions of tones and voices that each say something different, yet the odd thing is that all that is being said is part of you. You cherish each thought; they’re sweet, precious in your sight. They make you the wonderfully intense and complex being you’ve become. They’ve made you the person people know and love. Yet why at the same time do you wish to seek refuge from them.

I guess it’s like running from someone that in reality you do love. You see so much of yourself in them that it’s frighteningly overwhelming. You see the good and bad qualities you possess that come to mind when viewing that person. You somehow feel as if you isolate yourself from yourself that you will never be faced with conflict. That you’re inside some padded cocoon that shields you from the painful pleasures of life. "Painful pleasures," you ask. "How is that possible?"

Allow me to explain. The very pressures and pains that we all go through are the building blocks of what make up our commonly uncommon human experiences. The moments that define us as people and make us as wise to the mysteries of life as we can become as we learn from them or fail to remember George Santayana’s words and condemn ourselves to the same chain of events repeatedly. The miracles and mishaps that either make us bolder to explore uncharted spaces or tragically suck up into the vacuum of oblivion by robbing ourselves of the right to experience risk and even the basic right to feel.

"Success is the result of a risk successfully survived," I once heard it said, and I am inclined to agree one hundred percent. For how can you ever experience anything good unless you first step out of your comfort zone? Depart the familiar for a spell. Learn to survive the status quo; get out and live a little. For how can you ever learn if you never are willing to move beyond the commonplace? You must never settle for mediocrity. The tragic result is losing your individuality.

You have to face the inevitable. Life is full of changes and risks. Will you hold up to them or wimp out and live in the monastery of some safe sheltered haven of indifference? I have a major problem with that idea. It seems much too dull and uninteresting to me. Maybe the trick to life is to not have it all figured out. For really when you look at it properly, in life CHANGE IS THE RULE RATHER THAN THE EXCEPTION.