In the Zone – The Comfort Zone
“Change today?” the beggar asked. 
I had passed him earlier. He smiled. His teeth were yellow. The coins rattled in his cup.
“Change today?”
Perhaps I am the beggar. Or you.
Will I change today? Will you?
Of course, the answer is yes. We always do. And yet… .
I don’t much like change. Like many of us, I like things to stay the same. I am “comfortable” with “the way things are.” I like constancy, predictability.
Here’s an especially disturbing revelation: I put my coffee cup in exactly the same place next to the coffee pot every single night so that it’s ready for my coffee the next morning. It troubles me if someone moves it. If you want to toy with my emotional well-being, move my cup.
Yet change is what renews, what breathes new life. Change brings us color and texture and dimensionality. Change is what makes life vibrant and exciting.
Without change, life is monochromatic and dull. Without change, there is no zest.
Resiliency in the face of unexpected change, the ability to accept change, to seek it out, and welcome it: these are markers of a rich and full and satisfying life.
We can rely on change – it’s a sure thing
For indeed change is the only thing that does not change. It is the only constant.
Suffering is resistance to change. And because we don’t like suffering any more than we like change, it makes change especially difficult to face.
I was at a bar association social recently, speaking with a young attorney in her late 20s. We were talking about the demands of the practice of law and her desire to travel and adventure. She told me how “stuck” she felt; how “trapped” she was; how she wished she could explore a new career, a new way of making a living. But alas, she sighed, it was too late to change.
I was astounded. Who says shit like that?
(Of course, we all do!)
But guess what? It’s never ever too late to change!
We’re not locked in. You can change
- your partner
- your socks
- your political affiliation
- your job
- your state
- your apartment
- your religion
- your entire world view
In an instant. We can change. We can make the choice.
Shake It Up!
So go ahead, mix it up.
This week:
- Try a new restaurant
- A new job
- Drive a different route to work
- Join a gym
- Attend a new church
- Explore a museum
- Take a different vacation
- Try a new sport
- (Move your coffee cup)
Can we be open to change? Can we explore change? Can we embrace it?
Can we be the change we want to see?
How about it? Change today?
Behold, I am doing a new thing; now it springs forth, do you not perceive it?
— Isaiah 43:19
Actually change is constantly dying in each moment or living depending on your perspective so being unknown is the wonderfulness of changing! I think Ann should move your coffee cup each day and it would be interesting to hear your perspective much like your training for running or is mixing the coffee with decaf a placebo..
Just enacting from an “enactive theoretical” perspective (world, body, mind),
J.