Change can and will come along and doesn’t care if you’re ready for it. You can let it destroy everything or you can use it to your advantage and build up from there. It might shatter your world view, but with this new broadened perspective you can see the truth. This week in Deeper Thoughts we’re going to discuss how external, internal, intentional and non unintentional changes can build you up, destroy you, and build you back up again.
You can recognize change and work with it early on to build yourself up, or you can push back and let it break you down. This can be something like having new management or even new ownership at work and seeing ways to use this new change to get that promotion you’ve wanted, but were always overlooked due to the old office politics. Or you might recognize the pattern and know markets are about to change and put more money in certain stocks while selling stocks in those areas that will be affected more negatively.
Another example can be your wife, girlfriend, or even yourself might find out a baby is on the way. For many, knowing this change is occurring is the catalyst for many internal and external changes. You quickly get better at budgeting, quit constantly partying, or get your act together to not only get a well paying job you need to provide support, but actually stick to and keep said job.
Then there are times when we want to resist change. You can resist the change all you want, and in doing so things can continue to get worse. Or you can take that change, even if it’s painful, and let it give you a new edge so you can build yourself up to even greater heights.
Let’s take a look at someone we’ll call Randy who has a drinking problem. He goes to the bar after he gets through his shift at work to decompress. He has 3-4 drinks every time, sometimes more if he had a stressful day. He gets home late every night, which makes his wife angry, she tells him she feels neglected, is worried something might be wrong, hates the amount of money he’s spending on alcohol, and hates the fact that he’s always drunk. After months of this behavior she threatens to leave him if he doesn’t stop his drinking. Instead of taking her warnings to heart, he continues his habit until she does follow through with her threat, leaves, and takes the kids with her.
Now on top of the stress from work, Randy’s drinking increases due to grief and anger from the end of the relationship. He starts drinking more every night and now on the weekends as well. On top of his alcohol budget getting ridiculous, his performance at work is declining as well. To the point that after several warnings, he eventually loses his job.
After this he continues drinking even more, getting drunk every night until he gets pulled over for a DUI, loses his license, and has steep fines, attorney, and court fees. But even after this, he continues his drinking and one night while drunk and without his license crashes his car.
From the very beginning, after hearing how his wife was feeling, Randy saw the potential of change. Change he in fact did not want. But he instead resisted the fear of the change and continued with his coping mechanism, escapism via drinking. This moment gave him the opportunity to look into the real reasons for drinking so much, despite his excuses to his wife and himself, actually were, work and family related stress. He could have then come up with better ways to manage that stress, such as working out, getting into some sport, or even seeking a therapist to help him and cut back his drinking, if not quit all together.
From here he would have better and healthier tools to manage his stress, make his wife feel seen, validated, heard, and no longer neglected. He would still have his family. He knew of a potential external change that was possible, but did nothing about it.
After his wife and children left him, Randy once again had a chance to make changes in his life. He could’ve done all the aforementioned things to make inner changes that improved himself and could have possibly led to a potential repair in the rupture his drinking caused with his wife. Instead he was into resistance to that change that occurred and leaned even heavier into his coping mechanism.
Another chance for change for the better came again after the change of losing his job, then the DUI. While this is a highly simplified example, you can see how you can sometimes identify an external change that can be coming and make change that’s for the better.
Sometimes we might not see the external change before it’s too late. Even with this example if Randy’s wife hadn’t given him any warning and blindsided him by leaving, he still had that opportunity to make changes with himself and how he was coping with things. But instead he leaned into his unhealthy coping strategy.
In this example, Randy was met with external changes that had he accepted those external changes could have made internal changes that would have built himself up. But instead he leaned into escapism and allowed those external changes to destroy him. Many people fear and run from change because they feel they have no control over the situation. But change is a force that’s meant to help you heal and evolve. You accept the change and take stock of what you do have control over instead of focusing on the control you no longer have or thought you have.
So when you do have knowledge of change that’s coming, think of what it means and how you can use it to improve yourself. And if you’re blindsided by change, again, what can you do because of this change to build yourself up? Change comes about to teach us lessons so we can grow.
It’s your choice. Let the change happen to you and break you down, or let the change happen FOR you and through you to use it to build yourself up into a better person.
Thank you for reading. I hope you all have an enlightening day.
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