Change the changeable, accept the unchangeable

Change is an important part of our mortal lives.  We all need to change if we want to progress.  Yet change is not always a good thing.  There are times when change wreaks havoc on our lives.  Change can bring about powerful results.  We can change who we are, for good or for ill.  As such, change must be handled delicately.  Some people don’t like it, all people must experience it, and all must learn its positive and negative effects.

My prompt for this post is a sad subject: negative changes to people’s thoughts, behaviors, and natures.  Often, individuals react negatively to something that occurs in their lives, and at times their reaction leads to a change of being.  Someone who might never have done a certain something might find that one day, that behavior is habitual and expected.  I have many friends who have developed habits or changed their natures for good and for ill.  Those who change for good, I am glad to know.  Those who change for ill, I want to help recognize their actions…but of course, they don’t want help.  They resist positive change.  Typically those who were once better and who have become less than their former selves recognize what they have done, but decide to settle.  Change didn’t work out for them so well the first time, so why try it out again? they say.  So why do we let ourselves digress?  Why do we let this happen?  “For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.”  ‘Opposite’ doesn’t have to signify another contradictory force such as anger, bitterness, or malice, taking over when something bad happens.  Why don’t we let ‘opposite’ mean a positive reaction such as meekness, peacefulness, or charity?  We choose our reactions.  We ALWAYS have the opportunity to control how we change when change comes to our lives.  So why don’t we let change mold us into better people?  Why do some of us change who we are so drastically in such negative ways that a few years down the road we become unrecognizable to those who were once friends?  What is the purpose of change if not to help us progress and make us stronger?  "All change is not growth, as all movement is not forward," said Ellen Glasgow.  But Francis Bacon taught, "Things alter for the worse spontaneously, if they be not altered for the better designedly."  We have to make positive changes happen instead of allowing negative changes to rule our lives.  Positive change allows us to grow and progress through the eternities, while negative change stops our progress and ultimately leads to ruin.