Thoughts for the New Year (Part 1: Adapting to Adapting to Change)

Change.

It's a scary word for many people. Change keeps companies on their toes, and sometimes sweeps them off their feet if it's dramatic enough. Change forces the media to stay ahead of the game before they're labeled "old-fashioned" or "lame." Even worse, change means that life cannot simply go on normally forever. Change is a constant force that, if it does not move a person, will certainly leave its marks on them.

But does change have to be a bad word? There's no denying that change is inconvenient to at least some small degree for any person living a routine life, which would be everybody in this world. Everything that happens in this world affects everyone in it in some way. Were we able to have our way, most of us would probably choose how we wanted life to be and never ask to change it, and especially not have someone else change it for us. On the other hand, however, who's to say any one person knows what's right for society as a whole? Regardless of how you feel politically (I'm still not even sure how I feel, so I can hardly be swaying you in that sense), collaborating with several others from different backgrounds is crucial to getting all the background we can get to determine what really is best for the average individual on this earth.

All my life, I've grown up with blinders on, not wanting to really consider anything outside of what I've had placed in front of me as I walk straight through life. It wasn't until the end of this year that I really learned what good change can do for a person or even an entire people. There's much to be said about time-honored traditions, customs, and laws because many of the ones instituted have stood the test of time as being relevant even today. But there too are some statutes, thoughts, and behaviors that match an older society and one that shouldn't reflect on us as a progressive world in every other realm. It's been a process, but my own natural social life has turned into a field study where I've startlingly found a remarkable number of people not screwed over by change, but rather blessed by it. For some of these people, change gripped their lives in very personal ways that they couldn't help, but instead of trying to fight what was just natural, they went with this change, curious to see where the tide may take them and sick and tired of fighting the change within them for the applause of others.

There are always two sides to every war, but we can't lose sight of the forest for the trees. Some people are born in circumstances where they are generally privileged socially in just about every way you could think of. For these people, change is not seen as necessary or even favorable. For the various people who are born under different circumstances, the war is about embracing the lot they've been dealt in life and fighting for change to ensure the security of that lot once they've really embraced it. If you're one of the former and don't think change is important, consider something you hold very dear in your own life taken away from you--something so dear to you that if you were to lose it, it would irreversibly cost you your reputation. If you could never get that one thing back, whatever it was, wouldn't you want absolution from the law from being trodden on even more? Consider those who have been dealt a different hand in life: that's how you win the game.