On the long road toward finding oneself, I'm often reminded of something my grandma used to tell me and, her father before her “The only permanent part of life is change”. At the time I understood the message she was trying to send with that phrase but, it wasn't until much later in life that I began to fully respect the weight of her words.
Even as I write these words the world continues to change. The concept of change when I first began to truly understand it, brought about an array of emotions. The first of these emotions was fear, fear of loss, fear of pain, and even fear of triumph. Now you might be wondering if the concept of change brought all these fears to your attention, then, how can it be a positive thing?
Turning a Negative Into A Positive
Well, the answer is pretty simple, while change can be frightening and unpredictable, it also brings along with it an almost overwhelming sense of humility, and peace, which comes from knowing that every person can make a terrible life amazing or an amazing life terrible.
Another part of the change which I firmly believe is that change fuels all sorts of curiosity.
If not for a change in the weather, would we be interested in the many secrets the sky holds?
Or if not for a change in the current of the sea, would we have been driven to learn about the oceans?
Curiosity is an interest in someone or something that we are not able to comprehend, so without change what would be left to comprehend? Nothing.
Are We Responsible For Accepting Change?
The next topic I would like to address is Integrity and when discussing integrity, the first thing to ask is, what is it? Well, in my definition and I'm sure that of many others, integrity is the character and overall goodness a person retains with no external pressure to do so. Without a sense of integrity where would society sit?
Would there be empathy? Would there be any level of understanding? Would humanity have failed a long time ago? Integrity is a basic human characteristic that not all people share. At first, innocence is born into the world but, after long years of what some people may experience as a hard life, seem to lose their sense of integrity.
In my personal opinion integrity is essential to a good life. How good does it feel to lose a wallet and have somebody return it to you with all of its contents still inside? To me, it feels better than having the wallet in the first place. How much safer do you feel knowing that the people around you are willing to help one another, not to benefit themselves but, out of pure kindness?
With integrity comes honesty and, with honesty comes responsibility.
I'm reminded of words told to me by a wise man I met while I was in Collbran “ live a life being honest and you'll have very few regrets.” Those words after years still ring in my head every time I am faced with a difficult decision or situation. I believe that it is our responsibility as people to show the utmost integrity and honesty and hold ourselves to a very high standard in which we are the only party responsible for meeting.
To operate happily, and healthily. Not only because in the end, we will reap benefits for our efforts but because we live in a world where everything is connected and if people would hold themselves to a high standard of integrity, I just believe that chaos wouldn't thrive so easily
At the end of the day, there are two things I hope you got from this
One is excited about the changes you are capable of and,
Two is a new drive to show as much integrity as possible and apply it to everything you do.
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