People who know me well would probably tell you that I am an optimist and I always try to see the good sides of situations and people. And damn straight, I am! In fact the opposite is quite daunting to me : I strongly believe that focusing on the faults and criticizing people actually bring most people on a downwards and extremely counter productive spiral of thoughts.
I KNOW for having experienced it that Positive and Mindful Thinking can look like a naive and simplistic way of looking at life; but really, for me looking at things negatively make me feel this lady’s frustration !…
(long version : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8cT_Ulmcrys )
Seriously ! Who has the luxury to be able to waste the Power of their Mind to Negativity ? (I will blog about this again in details soon : your thoughts are powerful!)… Me I’d rather spend my energy looking for Beauty. Nevertheless, as I am human, the fact is, some things really trigger me back to the shadows… And one of these triggers is what I call “immobilism” : people who really really don’t want to change anything in their lives, are devoted to the pas, traditions and routines, spend their energy into maintaining and worshiping long gone memories…
Particularly there is one sentence that I hear and really ticks me off : “we always did it like that!”If we don’t try something new, how do we know that there isn’t anything BETTER than what we always did ? Repeating over and over the same thing “because we always did it like that” is bound to become tedious in the long run, don’t you think ? What was the best way of doing things in the 30s or the 90s is not really adaptable to today’s ways…
I ranted about French people before and here we go again: we are the most complaining and protesting people in the world in my sight and hence we are the most resistant to change ever! As French people, our reputation is that we protest and strike a lot… In France, there are laws from Napoleon’s era which, if the Government dares to want to change, drive everyone in the streets in protest! I am not saying that Laws should all be changed, a lot of the Human Rights are probably the most Universal timeless Laws ever. But do we still need laws that say that “it is forbidden to die on a commune if you don’t have a cemetery plot within the boundaries of that commune” (yes there is a law that says that…!)? And do you really think that, because the status of the Economy 50 years ago made it possible to support and aid people a certain way, it can always remain like that ? The idea that laws and rights are “acquired” forever really makes little sense…
If nothing ever changed, we wouldn’t have evolved from nothingness into an amoeba, then a mammal, then apes, then humans ! Life is CHANGE. Things evolve, this is how Nature works, so we might as well get with the new times! One definition of Death is that there is not more change in our body. Do we really want to accept a static “life” because “we ALWAYS did it like that”?
If nothing ever changed, wouldn’t our lives be boring ? Don’t you actually get the most excited when something new is coming ? I do !
If nothing ever changes, we would not integrate technology in our lives. (I can hear you think about the Amish community, but, no actually Amish are not the most amazing “immobilists” of all times in my books! They just take way longer to embrace new technologies because they spend time evaluating if it’s good for them and the simple life they aspire to, and I respect that deeply. However these very long discussions are because of our ingrained Fear of Change!
And most importantly, if nothing ever changed, we couldn’t welcome Love in our lives. I don’t think there is anything more dramatically shaking in life than falling in Love. But if we are not ready to let go of our habits and routines, Love will more likely not find its place and even more, it will not stay in our lives. Because, no matter how you see it, we need to make compromise in relationships (all of them) and, let’s face it, making compromise involves a change of the way we think.
Furthermore, if we stay the same all our lives, more likely we will have regrets, because we systematically will “live” lives that were not meant to be ours, we derive from the signs and the Path that was designed for us. Someone I call my mentor for this reason, Late Jean-Jacques Mérie, a beautiful and multi-talented being, told me this very little, seemingly insignificant phrase when I was a teenager and it blew my mind and changed the way I saw my life. He said : “In the end of your life, you need to be able to say to yourself : “I did some good to myself!””.
This reminder to avoid having regrets is thoroughly and intrinsically linked with the connection I have with Change. I see change as a passing, an evolution, a transformation. I choose to see Change as a Positive Thing.
The way I look at it is very well summed up by the simple words of Jim Rohn :
I’m not sure why these words made so much sense to me when I first read this, but what I really mean by this is : YOU ARE THE MASTER OF YOUR LIFE, ONLY YOU CAN MAKE IT BETTER! So welcome the Transformations and the Changes in your life with Joy : they might be difficult times but they are Gateways to wonderful new situations !…
I would really like you to comment on this and start discussions : what changed your life ? What brought you to step out of a dark downwards spiral of doubt or depression ?
