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change 2
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There
are those of us who find change to be a wonderfully
invigorating experience, and those of us who find change
to be terrifying. Since I belong to the first group, I
find it hard to understand those who belong to the second
group, but I recognize that as my shortcoming, not theirs.
I like change because I'm used to change, and because I've
gone through change regularly. I know how positive it can
be because I've experienced it, and I've seen the results
of change. I know that even the changes that seem to be
very negative end up being positive--how many people who
have been laid off have found even better jobs doing work
they love doing, though they never would have done so--never
would have changed--if they hadn't been forced to?
A
wonderful friend now lives a couple of thousand miles
away because her husband was laid off and found work
elsewhere--but they love where they are and what they're
doing. It's the same for another friend who's a few hundred miles
away now--she loves her new job and her new life.
Change terrifies because the status quo is usually
comfortable. We can pay the bills and keep food on the
table the way things are, so why change anything? That's
one way the military gets people to re-up: focus on the
pleasantness of the secure, steady income, and remind
people of the risks of getting out into the real world. But change shouldn't be terrifying if we trust life and
trust God. Life goes on no matter what happens to us
individually, and it's always rife with opportunity and
possibility, yet somehow we focus on the limitations and
impossibilities. If our lives change, then we have to
examine the change and search out the positive in it,
search out the potential in it.
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Having
grown up in a family with a father in the military, we
were forced to change our entire lives regularly, and it
never hurt us. We learned a lot from the change, and
though there are times when I wish I had some roots
somewhere, someplace I could call home, I know that what
I learned about myself and others from having gone
through so much change is invaluable in my life. The
change sometimes wounded us, and we missed out on long-term
friendships and relationships, but it never killed us,
and we always got something from it.
Change
is not without its dark side, of course. Change is inevitable, and it seems to have become much
more common in our culture. We change jobs, homes,
families, spouses, cars, everything much more often and
readily than we used to, and many people use change to avoid facing
problems that are extremely important parts of their
lives. The people who give up on their marriages without
making a true effort to work through the problems are causing
more problems than they're solving -- running away from
problems is not true change, but avoidance. These people
are not growing through change, but trying to use change to
help them to avoid potentially difficult effort and
soul-searching.
Most
change is very positive, if we look at it in a healthy way,
yet there are still many who
balk at change, and who allow the possibility of change
to terrify them, to take away their lust for living, to
make them back away from life. Change and risk go hand in
hand, and the life without risk can not be a full life,
for human beings are by nature dynamic and full of life
and energy. Let change happen, go with it, move with it,
learn from it. Don't let it pull you down or make you
feel afraid. Trust life and trust God that the change
will be for the best, then look for the best--don't
expect it to announce itself to you.
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The
difference between a grave
and a rut are the dimensions.
Dale Carnegie |
Nothing endures
but change.
Heraclitus |
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One must never
lose time in vainly regretting the past or
in complaining against the
changes which cause us discomfort,
for change is the essence of life.
Anatole France
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Nature's
mighty law is change.
Robert
Burns |
Be
the change you want to see in the world.
Mahatma
Gandhi |
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Those persons
are happiest in this restless and mutable world
who are in love with
change, who delight in what is new
simply because it differs from what
is old;
who rejoice in every innovation, and find a strange alert
pleasure
in all that is, and that has never been before.
Agnes Repplier
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None
of us knows what the next
change is going to be,
what unexpected
opportunity
is just around the corner,
waiting to change all
the
tenor of our lives.
Kathleen
Norris
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If one changes internally,
one should not continue to live with the
same objects. They
reflect one's mind and psyche of yesterday.
I throw away what has
no dynamic, living use. I keep nothing to
remind me of
the passage
of time, deterioration, loss, shriveling.
Anais Nin
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Change
is the end result of all true learning. Change involves three things:
First, a dissatisfaction with self--a felt void or need; second, a
decision
to change--to fill the void or need; and third, a conscious
dedication
to the process of growth and change--the willful act of
making
the change; Doing Something.
Leo
Buscaglia
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In spite of all
our hopes, dreams, and efforts, change is real and forever.
Accept
it fearlessly. Investigate the unknown; neither fear nor worship
it.
Joseph A. Bauer
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I
think that all human systems require continuous renewal. They
rigidify.
They get stuff in the joints. They forget what
they cared about. The forces
against it are nostalgia and the
enormous appeal of having things the way
they always have been, appeals
to a supposedly happy past.
But we've got to move on.
John
W. Gardner
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Those who reject change are
architects of decay.
The only human institution which rejects
change is the cemetery.
Harold Wilson
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Our
dilemma is that we hate change and love it at the same time;
what we really want is for things to remain the same but get
better.
Sydney
J. Harris
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Not everything that is faced
can be changed.
But nothing can be changed until it is faced.
James Baldwin
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God
knows change can make your
life richer.
Live for today but hold
your hands open to tomorrow. Anticipate the future and its changes
with joy.
There is a seed of God’s
love in every event,
every
circumstance,
every unpleasant situation in which
you may find yourself. Don’t get
stuck in a rut or hung up on an outdated
blessing. You serve a God of change!
Barbara
Johnson
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Nearly
all great civilizations that perished did so because
they had
crystallized, because they were incapable of adapting
themselves to new
conditions, new methods, new points of view.
It is as though
people would literally rather die than change.
Eleanor
Roosevelt
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Life
belongs to the living, and those who live must be prepared for changes.
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We have a hunch that it is possible to live
a better, more balanced, and less stressful life, but many of us
firmly believe that we don’t have the time or energy to make
the necessary changes, even though perhaps just one small change
could significantly reduce our stress levels.
Instead of striving for attainable incremental changes,
we sometimes complain as if our lives are completely out of our
hands!
Gary Egeberg |
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Why should anyone be
afraid of change? What can
take place without it? What can be more pleasing
or more suitable to universal nature?
Can you take your bath without the firewood undergoing
a change? Can you eat without the food undergoing a change?
And can anything useful be done without change?
Don't you see that for you to change is just the same,
and is equally necessary for universal nature?
Marcus
Aurelius
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