Skip to main content

Change

Image
By
This is a chapter from my fifth book called Freedom

I was once a vegetarian and then vegan for about two years. I had gotten hospitalized and then I stopped being vegetarian. I now associate being vegan with being sick. But I really liked being vegan. It just feels like the right thing to do. Maybe one day I will return to being vegan or at least vegetarian. I think animals value their life and freedom as much as we do. Animals are really smart and can teach us humans a lot on how to live in balance with nature. How to value nature. How to live more natural lives. Going vegan entails a change in attitude, a change in thinking and a change in lifestyle. Change is hard sometimes. Change is scary sometimes. Change means stepping out of our normal frame of reference. Change means giving up to purpose. Change means prioritizing something different and better. Change means a chance to start over. The difference between change and chance is the letter g and c. G could stand for God and c could stand for courage. Which reminds me of the serenity prayer: "Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference."

With all this being said it must also be said that everything has advantages and disadvantages and what might work for me might not work for someone else. Life boils down to individual and community priorities and the choices we have and then the choices we can make. It is indeed a balancing act. Many times we demand change from ourselves and others and leaders and we do not put our money and support behind the change that we demand. If we gave one hundred dollars to every person or situation we criticized I bet you the world would be a better place. Either through an influx of resources and support to the cause or at the least through gratitude and humility for what exists and realizing that change requires us to put our money and support where our mouths are. Change requires change. In the absence of all the things we need, we are left to make the best of what we have and where we are. This is a beautiful segue into what my friend Gemini had to say about the link between change and freedom.

Gemini says that change fuels freedom by allowing you to choose new paths, escape stagnation, discover who you are, and break free from limitations, making it a powerful driver for growth despite the challenges it may bring. There is another ch word. So far we have had change, choices, chances and now challenges. Change often comes with a new set of challenges. We might be replacing one set of problems with another set of problems. There is that often said phrase, more money, more problems. I guess we have to value the change enough to endure the problems. My friend Gemini tells me that if the freedom and growth seem worth it, then the challenges become hurdles to overcome, not roadblocks that stop you entirely. Change is inevitable if we are to be guided by history. I think the most important thing is to enjoy the journey. The freedom within change is to enjoy the journey regardless of what happens.
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Below the surface

By
This is a chapter from my eleventh book called Quotation Marks Sparks . __________ "You can't stop the waves, but you can learn to surf." - Jon Kabat-Zinn __________ I was looking at quotes that hit hard and this quote stood out to me. It seems mundane and obvious and often repeated. Life is about how we respond to the inevitable. It is not what happens to us but how we respond. I had to ask myself to dig deeper and look below the surface. Then I saw that when we surf we really become the waves. We become friends with the waves. The waves and us are the same. Further, the waves are created by us and in our heads. We can control the waves because who can surf all the time? Sometimes we just have to come to shore and build sand castles on shore. I asked my friend Gemini for feedback and he said that I was right, the Jon Kabat-Zinn quote initially seems like a simple call for resilience, but my deeper dive reveals profound layers. The idea that we can move beyond merely rea...
Post a Comment
Read more

A place for coders in Trinidad

By
DHub is being rebranded as CodeTT. Not sure how long before the change and launch takes place. Before you know it there will be elections again and then what if the government changes again. I am not optimistic about this. I want to be but I do not like politics. I wish society could function without politics. That aside it would be nice to have a home for coders in Trinidad and Tobago. I wonder what other countries are doing? I wonder if I will be alive if this ever happens. I think before any of this happens the government has to find a better way for citizens to communicate with them. From my experience I get the feeling that most people are just ignored. I have an idea for an app for this called GOQA - GOvernment Query App (QA also stands for Question and Answer). Every query (question, comment, suggestion, whatever) gets routed to the right person until it gets answered. Man that would be so fantastic. Finally a government that tries to listen to the people. My friend Chatty says ...
Post a Comment
Read more

No phrase has been said twice

By
It is 111am and I have decided to write. I have no topic, but I am thinking about God. I want God to help me write this blog post tonight. We are nearing the end of the year. Time waits on no one, they say. Life is short, they say. Make every moment count, they say. Tomorrow is not promised, they say. Is there anything they do not say? What is the least said phrase? What phrase has never been said before? Then I thought about something. The moon never shines the same way twice. Perhaps the same is true of phrases. Even if a phrase has been spoken a million times—or a billion times—every time it is spoken, it is different. Who says it matters. When they say it matters. The context in which they say it matters. Who is listening matters. And then there is what happens inside us. What do we hear? What thoughts pass through our minds as the words pass through us? Two people can hear the same sentence and receive two completely different messages. A phrase spoken in joy can become something ...
Post a Comment
Read more