Change happens with you or without you
Change, a thing that we have grappled with over the years, hell, since we’ve ever existed. Whether it’s politics or philosophy, whether we applied our thoughts regarding change or not, that one thing has always been debated, for better or for worse. But, as I developed my sense of the world and the sense of morality, for me change is a given. Whether you look at the history of man kind, the history of nature or even the universe, one thing is constant, change. This applies to people as well, whether we are talking at a global scale, a national scale, a societal scale, the scale of friendships and families over the years, and even at a very personal level, change is there constantly. You can fight change, you can try to keep the same, it won’t work. Change is going to happen with or without your consent. And I’m not even talking politically. Your clothes, if you wear them they will degrade with time, that’s a change. Your phone, the more you use it, the more it will degrade whether you want it or not. It all depends how much care you take of it. The same applies to your body as well. Yes, you can not control the prices of food, the external pressures or the actions of others, but you can still try to exercise, try to eat the best you can, incite a revolution, socialize, go out for a walk, topple the government, get a pet, you know… Stuff that might keep you healthier for longer. But even if you try your best to stay in the best shape, your body will change with or without your consent, for now, and you have no choice regarding that.
On a grander scale, this is what makes change scary for most people. This is one of the many dumb reasons people find conservatism so soothing, it’s the illusion of keeping things as they are, even if they do not care or want to participate in the violence of said system. These people have it well enough that change scares them into thinking that they might lose the peace and stability they have. They never had to think of change, because things always worked out for them and the changes they had to make were within the boundaries of said system. Yet it doesn’t make sense, because even those systems changed drastically. (The reasons they changed and how is a topic for another day.) Things improved, things changed, things were invented that made life easier. And inventions usually are changes to the world as we know it, especially those that have a broad impact. Like sliced bread, LSD, pornography or the internet, these inventions changed the world in some aspects, which we can’t take back anymore. And I doubt that any sane person would argue today that we should abolish these things and go back to the way things were before. So change is inescapable at every single level of your life. You progress whether you want it or not, you change whether you want it or not. The only thing you can do is either be a bystander and let it all go by you… Or be part of the change and have a positive impact…
Otherwise the world will leave you behind if you won’t participate in it, and this is not a hyperbole. If you never change, the world will change. Those around you will change and will leave you behind. And usually people like that will victimize themselves and will find solace in other people that are like them, stuck. Change is going to happen to you whether you want it or not. So there’s no reason to resist it. If you won’t change willingly, you’ll change unwillingly, that’s the paradox of change. If you remain the same person you were 3-5-10-15 years ago, as people around you progress, you will regress, which is still a change. And there is no positive connotation for regression. As I said, you can either be active in that change and take control, or you can let it be and regress as the world changes and progresses without you. And if you do not believe me, look at the things you feel good about in your life. They are the things where you’ve changed, you’ve gotten better at, you’ve truly learned about in depth. They won’t be the things you got stuck in and never changed. Because there is no such thing as no change… Everything changes… If you won’t… You’ll be worse for it…