OPINION: Change is inevitable though difficult

Abid Hussain Rather –

Many motivational personalities vouch their speeches, books, or videos can change people’s lives. This might be true to a certain extent but the zealousness and propulsion in such claims are majorly exaggerations. Substantially, the reality is that such things are not often possible in our life. We are wary of change and always prefer to live in our comfort zones. It is human nature. Our body works like a machine, which needs rest after a specific period. Change in human beings is determined by their way of thinking, level intelligence, self-awareness, and several other socio-psychological factors. Change depends on various parameters. The way we think, how we analyse the situations and our reaction to them etc – all determine whether we go for it or not. To really make a change in one’s life cannot happen overnight. It needs a lot of time. As ice needs a particular temperature and enough time along with a suitable environment to change into water, a person too needs specific time, apt environment, and a precise strategy to change his or her lifestyle and the way of thinking. Change, often, is a difficult, severe, and painful process and it may sometimes lead to depression. Hence, nobody wants to tread this path unless he or she is pushed by motivation or compulsion. These are the only two factors that enable a person to accept change. Though it is motivation that brings in the change in its truest form.

Mary Wollstonecraft Shelly, the English novelist who wrote the Gothic novel Frankenstein, has said that nothing is so painful to the human mind as a great and sudden change. This process cannot occur due to some force, pressure, or avidity. The first and foremost requirement for a change is freedom of mind and enthusiasm in heart, otherwise you cannot forcibly bring any change in anybody.  Change is a natural process and in fact it is inevitable. The reality of life is nothing but a course of continuous changes, so we should readily accept changes in our life. From our birth to death, we see that both time and situations change continuously and nobody has control over them.

We cannot deny the fact that change is also a beautiful process and those people who pass through it willingly are least affected by it, otherwise change has to occur whether we are ready for it or not and it will continue as long as we are alive and even after our death. There are almost 98% people in the world who cannot change anything except changing themselves and only 2% people in the world have amenability to change the world.

The astonishing reality is that the 98% people who cannot change anything except changing themselves are trying to change the world. Leo Tolstoy has rightly said that everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself.

We often forget that the real change is the change that we bring in ourselves. Moulana Rumi has beautifully said that “Yesterday I was clever, so I wanted to change the world; today I am wise, so I am changing myself”.

We can live happily if we are ready to change our thoughts, ways of living, attitude, habits, behaviour, and expectations in a positive way. It is impossible to live a salubrious life without bringing changes in ourselves.  Little and small changes are essentially for peace and happiness in our life. According to Albert Einstein, the measure of intelligence is the ability to change; if you are not changing, you are not growing. Einstein further says that the world as we have created it is the process of our thinking, it can’t be changed without changing our thinking. Change is essential for the survival of human beings and their societies. Only those nations in the world progress who change and adapt themselves to new techniques and trends and those who remain stand still vanish in the corridors of time. I am concluding my article with the famous saying of Friedrich Nietzsche, ” The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be minds.