Fashion and wants change. People change. Times change. Nothing is permanent in this world. The beautiful red rose you are holding today will go flaccid the following day. The cute little boy you are holding in your arms will soon become a grown-up man.
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, “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.
“The people who usually get the most out of life are those who are prepared to roll with the punches… those who recognize the fact that they can’t afford to become static and stagnant. The ability to adapt to new conditions is particularly important today. We have never lived in times when change has been more swift in almost all areas of our lives,” says Leon Kulikowski.
In his book, High Wind At Noon, Allan Knight Chalmers gives us the story of Peer Holm, who was a world-famous engineer. He built great bridges, railroads and tunnels in many parts of the world; he gained wealth and fame. But everything was not permanent. Later on, he struggled through life as failure, poverty, and sickness subdued him.
He returned to the place where he was born and, together with his wife and little girl, eked out a meager living. Unfortunately, he had a neighbor who owned a fierce dog. He warned him that the dog was dangerous but the old man contemptuously replied, “Hold your tongue, you cursed pauper.”
One day, Peer came home to find the dog at the throat of his little girl. He tore the dog away, but the dog’s teeth had gone too deeply and the little girl was dead. The sheriff shot the dog, and the neighbors were bitter against the old man.
When sowing time came, they refused to sell him any grain. His fields were plowed but bare; he could neither beg, nor borrow, nor buy seed. Whenever he walked down the road, the people sneered at him. But not Peer. He could not sleep at night thinking of his neighbor.
Very early one morning, he rose, went to his shed, and got his last half bushel of barley. He climbed the fence and sowed his neighbor’s field. The fields themselves told the story. When the seeds came up, it was revealed what Peer had done, because part of his own field remained bare while the field of his neighbor was green.
If you were Peer, would you do what he had done? He may have lost his daughter, but he found a friend. And that changes everything. “We can benefit from change,” Warren Wiersbe had said. “Anyone who has ever really lived knows that there is no life without growth. When we stop growing, we stop living and start existing. But there is no growth without challenge, and there is no challenge without change. Life is a series of changes that create challenges, and if we are going to make it, we have to grow.”
Change terrifies most of us. But one person who thrives on change is Tom Cruise. Want proof? His dad abandoned his family, and he grew up poor. But he stuck close to his mother and sisters, and transformed himself into one of the biggest movie stars in the world. He couldn’t read, and teachers said he was dyslexic. But he wouldn’t accept that and finally found the answer he needed – in an applied religious philosophy.
“I don’t agree with people who say, ‘Don’t change,’” said the actor who was catapulted to fame in Top Gun and received an Oscar nomination for his performance in Born On The Fourth of July (which was partly filmed in the Philippines). “When I was a kid, I said, ‘Man, I hope life gets better. I hope I change.’”
“The world hates change; yet it is the only thing that has brought progress,” says Charles Kettering. That is why we have to have a new president each six years. Old chief executive officers have to be retired so that new fresh ideas can be introduced in a struggling company.
“If you don’t like something change it; if you can’t change it, change the way you think about it,” suggests Mary Engelbreit. After all, no one can defy changes. “All changes, even the most longed for, have their melancholy; for what we leave behind us is a part of ourselves; we must die to one life before we can enter another,” Anatole France reminded.
“Welcome change as a friend: try to visualize new possibilities and the blessings it is bound to bring you,” says Alexander de Seversky. Don’t be afraid of change. “When you’re through changing, you’re through,” said Bruce Barton. Or as American author Gail Sheeh puts it, “If we don’t change, we don’t grow. If we don’t grow, we are not really living.”
You may be the most popular person in your company today. You may be the toast of the town in your university. You may be the most brilliant individual among your peers. But don’t let that fool you. Everything will come to pass.
But don’t worry. You have done something wonderful to other people. You have contributed something worthwhile to the world.
When those people you have known before have changed, take comfort from the words of Washington Irving. “There is a certain relief in change, even though it is from bad to worse. I have found while traveling in a stagecoach, that it is often a comfort to shift one’s position and be bruised in a new place,” he said.
