Why change is terrifying, exhilerating and absolutely necessary
There are many good reasons why children's imaginations are so much more fertile than adult brains - but the most compelling for me is simply that children let their imagination run free.
They don't put too much store by the places their imaginations take them, don't overanalyse, overthink the process, get scared by the opportunities presented or, conversely, decide to jack in their current lives and pack up and live with the fairies at the bottom of the woodpile.
Children inherently get that these thoughts are temporary, and as much as they have enjoyed their foray into space/the high seas/Magical Imp land, it's nearly tea time and there are still trees to climb.
It is in this impermanence that we get to explore, to grow and to change.
Ironically it’s not such a little thing; actually it’s a huge, life changing concept. Adults who can grasp the value of this impermanence are at a serious advantage and it puts them seriously ahead of the pack.
The big changes are easy to grasp. Buddhists call this concept gross impermanence: you were once a child, now you are an adult, someday you will grow old and finally die. These changes are clear and tangible.
Where the juicy stuff comes in is from subtle impermanence. The subtle changes that are constantly taking place within all people, animals and things. The small things that we rarely notice, but we know are changing over time. You don't see your child's growth day by day, the changes are too subtle, but when we see a niece after a few weeks, we can embarrassingly exclaim 'my, haven't you grown?!'
Subtle impermanence is inherently organic - a seed grows into a seedling, which then grows into a tree, which then produces seeds of its own. The tree is not the seed, even though it once was. The fruit it bears is not the tree, but is the reason why the tree exists. Each subtle change is inperceptable at the time, but literally life changing.
In the corporate world, whole business methodologies have been built on the basis that everything can and should change quickly. In project management, the Agile revoluton was the response to the slow pace and risk-averse nature of production (especially software production). We are now taught to embrace change, that to ‘fail fast, learn fast’ actually reduces risk, increases productivity and produces a better end result, with a greater likelihood of success. Quicker, cheaper, better. What’s not to like?
In political terms, change often implies a radical overthrow of existing regimes - the coup, the downfall of military regimes, or even the peaceful demonstrations of the Extinction Rebellion, but again, often the smaller, more imperceptable changes are the more palatable and more longer-lasting. (some might say more incidious, but that’s a topic for another day)
In personal terms, however, we often see change as a bad thing. Something that is done to us - your boss changing your job role or making you redundant, your partner leaving you, a death in the family - rather than a positive evolution. The ‘self-help’ brigade are still chastised as aging hippies, and the exploding market of ‘life coaching’ is seen as exploitative, ‘too milllenial’ or just plain made-up.
We as human beings are however, constantly changing, almost imperceptibly but entirely necessarily. I am not the same person I was five minutes ago, after lunch I will be different again.
This is mindblowing. If we are constantly changing anyway we have the absolute power to reshape and remold our lives on a daily or moment by moment basis.
The realisation that nothing in your life need be a stuck record or 'same old, same old' is both terrifying and exhilerating.
Rather than resisting the change, if we do this in a subtle and conscious way, we are not fighting the status quo, we are evolving and growing, creating new ideas and crafting a more productive, more purposeful life.
If you are ready to change, or at least talk about being ready, please book in a free discovery call with me here.