At first I didn’t quite understand what it meant. Because the resilience we have to face life is not a factor that counts when we see the change. Resistance to change is not about a revolution it’s not about not accepting a change in weather or a change in mood. It’s more about a severe drastic change that seems like a dramatic revolution of our life. At times I thought “so what! Everyone has a first reaction towards something” but no I was wrong. It’s not the first reaction either. Resistance is when we know the change is coming we know it has to be accepted by us but we simply refuse to do so. When we know that what’s coming, what’s in front of us, right in front of our eyes is absolutely correct and 100% authentic.
I felt this change when suddenly I thought my life has started changing. And what was that change? We were growing up! Well in literal sense, we have to grow up, but I am talking about the fact that at the end of my four years of engineering everyone had to get a job and leave college. This was an obvious absolute conclusive situation and all of us knew that. But the moment it started our minds started flipping out. It is Simple as that. It was resistance of my mind to stop believing the truth: to live back in the memories when “things were normal”. “Normal” is always equal to “what it has been like ever since”. But my my! Things have to flow in life, things have to change otherwise life would be so monotonous, so senseless. That’s when either the mind stops working or it over loads itself with thoughts; thoughts regarding the future, regarding the present and what not. And trust me it’s easy to get diverted by this functioning of the mind. Our mind is like a radio it has random thoughts and advertisements that come up with time. But it’s our choice whether to listen or to ignore or to change the channel. It’s easy to get locked up in the chaos of the mind and forget what you really need to do. To find a way and to fight from Resistance, we really need to first stop our mind for some time or maybe since it is not really a radio that we could switch off, we can try to change the channel. Think about good things: things you love, things you want to have things to want to do in future. Anything that soothes you and calms you down would become the favourite channel. Remember, nothing wrong is happening, it’s just the mind’s reaction and self-defense-cum-self-destruction mode. It turns on whenever we sense something different is happening. Calming your nerves is hence very important.
Since I am a dual degree student, doing B.Tech and MBA together, I still have the time to prepare myself for job hunting and placement sessions. My other friends who are doing normal B.Tech would leave after this year. So they were having their job interviews and I was getting pissed at the fact that I may not have anyone to talk to after they go. How stupid would that sound to you! This was my mind’s self-defense-cum-self-destruction mode. I was getting insecure. Insecurity was one of the major symptoms of this. I thought about the various solutions I could find, to keep myself from relating each and every situation that arose, to a “change in my life”. This was easy. I always feel better by writing so I wrote down all my thoughts and suddenly I wrote the solution of my problem as well. Slowly all my agitation and all my impatience converted into an understanding.
I understand now that I was resisting change. I was not accepting what was so obvious. I was not ready to understand, I wasn’t ready to listen to anybody and I was cribbing and crying for things to be “normal”. What I didn’t realize was that “normal” was not what we really want. “Normal” is past but “change” is the future. In fact we live the future every second of the day. That means every second that is to come is the future, hence “change” is also the Present. “Change” means to live in the present and “normal” means to live in the past. And I am sure all of us have heard it at least once in our lives- forget the past, live in the present. All my anxiety is over because no matter how much we loved to live the way we lived two days back, we would definitely love to live with a calm mind and ready heart in the present, in the future.
So be Ready! Change is coming. No two days are the same, how can Life be the same in each moment? 😉
Mellifluous Murmurings 