By Henrylito D. Tacio
“Yesterday, I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today, I am wise, so I am changing myself.” – Rumi
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I was already sleeping last night when I heard my mobile phone ringing. Much as I wanted to ignore it, I couldn’t. So, I reached for my phone, which was near my bed anyway. “This must be important,” I told myself.
Well, it was a forwarded message. I didn’t know why my friend forwarded it to me in the middle of the night. Although I didn’t find it very important, the message left me thinking the following day.
The message went something like this: “If you fall in love because someone makes you laugh, what happens when you no longer find the person funny? If you love a person because she is beautiful, what happens when that beauty fades? If you want to marry someone because the person can provide you what you want, what happens when he loses his wealth?
Furthermore, it said: “Love is beyond laughter, beauty and wealth. Those are just physical. So, if you intend to love and to cherish someone throughout your life, be sure to accept the challenge called change.”
Change – that word struck me. If there is one thing that is permanent in this world, it is change. As Chinese philosopher Lao Tzu puts it, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
Former American President Barack Obama also said, “Change will not come if we wait for some other person, or if we wait for some other time. We are the ones we’ve been waiting for. We are the change that we seek.”
More often than not, I hear a lot of people complain about being poor, not having what they want, and having all the problems in this world. Unknowingly, all these things will come to pass. John A. Simone, Sr. said it clearly, “If you’re in a bad situation, don’t worry, it will change. If you’re in a good situation, don’t worry, it will change.”
“Gulong ng palad” is how Filipinos compared the fortunes and misfortunes of life in this world. Everything changes since “hindi natutulog ang Diyos” (“God is not sleeping”). India’s Jawaharlal Nehru said it right, “The wheel of change moves on, and those who were down go up and those who were up go down.”
In a Peanuts cartoon, Charlie Brown asked Linus: “Perhaps you can give me an answer. What would you do if you felt that no one liked you?” Linus replied without much ado, “I’d try to look at myself objectively, and see what I could do to improve. That’s my answer, Charlie Brown.”
Hearing the answer, Charlie answered, “I hate that answer!”
There are a number of reasons why many of us, like Charlie Brown, resist change. After all, resistance to change is universal. Remember the story of Galileo? With his telescope, he proved the theory of Copernicus that the earth was not the center of the universe. The earth and the planets revolve around the sun. Yet, when he tried to change people’s beliefs, he was thrown into prison and spent the rest of his life under house arrest.
“We can’t be afraid of change,” C. Joybell C. pointed out. “You may feel very secure in the pond that you are in, but if you never venture out of it, you will never know that there is such a thing as an ocean, a sea. Holding onto something that is good for you now, may be the reason why you don’t have something better.”
Change is inevitable. You cannot defy it. If you don’t change, you will be left behind. Pauline R. Kezer reminds, “Continuity gives us roots; change gives us branches, letting us stretch and grow and reach new heights.”
Oscar award-winning Katharine Hepburn also said, “We are taught you must blame your father, your sisters, your brothers, the school, the teachers – but never blame yourself. It’s never your fault. But it’s always your fault, because if you want to change, you’re the one who has got to change,” she wrote in her autobiography, Me: Stories of My Life.
Here’s what Roy T. Bennet said in his book, The Light in the Heart: “It’s never too late to change your life for the better. You don’t have huge steps to change your life. Making even the smallest changes to your daily routine can make a big difference to your life.”
But there are people who don’t want to change at all. What will happen to them? Let these words of W.H. Auden serve as a reminder, “We would rather be ruined than changed; we would rather die in our dread than climb the cross of the moment and let our illusions die.”
Mignon McLaughlin, in his book, The Second Neurotic’s Notebook, has identified people who don’t want change. “It’s the most unhappy people who most fear change,” he said. Actually, these people don’t resist change. What they resist, according to Peter Senge, is “being changed.”
“Change has a bad reputation in our society. But it isn’t all bad — not by any means. In fact, change is necessary in life — to keep us moving, to keep us growing, to keep us interested. Imagine life without change. It would be static, boring, dull,” wrote Dr. Dennis O’Grady.
In Holland, two large windmills stood on the same dike and ground grain into flour. They had become a standard part of the scenery and their operation was a normal part of everyday life. But then, electricity came into the neighborhood and it could grind grain finer and cheaper and faster.
Modern ways threatened to put the two windmills out of business. But each of them reacted to the threat in a different way. The first one was completely rebuilt. An electric motor took the place of the large waterwheel which had supplied the power for the mill. The latest models of grinding machinery were installed. That mill kept on grinding grain and fulfilling its purpose.
The second windmill was left as it had always been. It gave up grinding grain as unprofitable, but it left the large windmill that keeps turning around in order to attract paying tourists.
The owner of the first windmill swallowed hard when he had to swap his venerable machinery for efficient modern technology. However, he had one consolation: his mill was still serving the purpose for which it had been built.
The second windmill went on turning for nothing: for it had given up its job of grinding grain. It seemed to be working at its age-old task, but actually all it was doing was satisfying tourist curiosity.
“Any institution which cannot adjust, cannot change appropriately with the changing times, is going to end up as a tourist attraction,” Lutz Hoffman concluded the anecdote.
“If we don’t change, we don’t grow,” said American author Gail Sheeh. “If we don’t grow, we are not really living.”
