HOW SCARY CHANGE CAN BE
By Lubnah Abdulhalim
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| Photo Courtesy: azconsulting.co.za |
Yes. Change is scary. It is just like how you wake up one morning and feel unusual. You rush to the mirror and find yourself with a bulging nose or maybe your face is full of wrinkles and your hair is totally grey like you just turned 90 years. But how did that happen? I was just 20 yesterday?! Or you wake up and find yourself to have changed gender. You were a girl last night but you just woke up with a shaggy stylish hair cut, with a beard and oh, a deep voice too! Of course you can imagine how frightening such a scenario is. Each and every day, change is swallowing us like slow poison yet we don't even realize it and that's exactly what makes it even more frightening.
In life we go through so many physical, emotional, environmental and even psychological changes. We change schools, we move to another neighborhood, we change our diets, we change friends and so much more. Yet there is that dangerous change that's invisible. The kind of change we all dont notice until we are already in the next level. How many times have you heard someone say, 'I miss the old me?' I bet so many many times. But where were you when that old you was going through transition to the brand new you? It's because we don't really pay attention to what goes on in our inner selves and most of the times we realize what has happened after it's way too late.
It's scary that today I may be poor and humble while tomorrow I may be filthy rich yet arrogant. It's scary that maybe one day I will be smoking weed and wondering how I ever got to change that much. But nothing is impossible in this life. Don't relax with the confidence that I will never change. Don't be over confident that you are pious, that you are strong, that you are firm...all that can totally change in a split of a second. You may become the most arrogant and evil man on earth, you may become so weak and broken that you may not recognize yourself anymore when you take a look at the mirror. What better example can there be than that of Satan who was the most religious in heaven; no one went down on prostration to God more than him, then what happened? He refused to prostrate to Adam due to arrogance and that same arrogance is what made him the most evil living creature in this life. If he who was one of the most beloved to God could change in moments so about us? What about us; we, the weak human beings?
There is a very thin line of change between all sorts of things. Be it between good and bad, between safety and war, between beauty and ugliness, between being whole and being physically challenged. Change will always live within us. You may see a very pretty woman who is famous for her glamour and beauty and just a few moments later you may hear that she got an accident and her face was destroyed beyond repair. Yes, its scary. It's scary that that once innocent and naive young girl may find herself in a man' s bed while that young boy who has been playing around with so many girls decides to quit it all and finally settle down. It's scary that the once down to earth man is now as proud as ever. It's scary that today I am alive and tomorrow I may be hit by a bus. Or that just as I leave home, that goodbye I say to mum may be the very last one. When I come back home...she might as well be gone forever. It's scary how much change is controlling us while we barely notice.
Not all change is bad. Sometimes its for the better and when it is for the better, then consistency is very important. You have finally decided to abandon all your ugly past life and you want a brand new life, that's great! but learn how to keep up with that new life. Learn how to live without looking back at what is gone. Without missing your old ways, without wanting to go back there. Consistency. Learn to be consistent.
At whatever stage of life you may be at this time, have time to check yourself. And maybe its for the better that you realize how scary change can be...and that's how you can learn to avoid those changes. Of course some changes are unavoidable like the bus that was meant to hit you or the job that you were to get fired from, but there is the change you can control; the behavioural change, the emotional change, the inner change. Make sure they don't get out of control. Make sure they don't take you to another level that will always make you regret, 'how did this happen to me?!' Instead lets all pray for positive change; the kind of change we can always look back at and say proudly, 'I have really changed but I needed that change. I am now proud of myself than ever before.'
