"The Summer Resolution" I made to blog was a good experience. However, I'm now too busy to keep up with the weekly demand. Hopefully in the coming months I will have additional time to paint my thoughts on this digital canvas once more. Right now I have to make sure that I graduate college :)
-Travis
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Friday, October 2, 2009
Lesson of the Week: Changes
Change is something that is right in front of our eyes every single day. Change happens slowly, sometimes so slow that we never notice it. What comes to mind is the Discovery Channel's “Planet Earth” where they track the growth of plants with time lapse cameras. With naked glances there is no growth, but with the right perspective, there is a constant change happening.
Change also happens extremely quick, so quick that what once was disappears within the blink of an eye. Think of the footage filmed at the test of nuclear bombs in the 1950's. A house, then a tidal wave of force, and then nothing but rubble. In life what sort of change do we experience? Do we change ever so slowly like a plant growing, or are our lives like nuclear bombs?
I think most of us would agree that change within ourselves is traditionally slow. We grow slow, we mature slow, and we learn slow (some of us more than others, and by “some of us”, I include myself). However, if you examen yourself from who you were a year ago, are you the same person? Change maybe slow at times, but change happens eventually. Then there are those points in our life where a bomb goes off. Everything that once was becomes engulfed in the force of flames. When these sorts of bombs go off in our lives, things change forever. Think of losing a career, think of a car crash, think of a divorce, all are sorts of nuclear bombs that change our lives instantaneously.
I'm currently in a state of slow change. I can see my present circumstances changing all the time. In a way I feel my present life context is like a tube of tooth paste. I'm the paste being squeezed out of my comfort zone (the tube) and am waiting to see if I end up hardening on the porcelain sink, washing down the drain, or being thrown onto a tooth brush...(example of a metaphor taken too far). But what I really hope is happening is a third state of change, the forest fire.
The forest fire is a mix of slow growth change and the nuclear bomb. When a forest fire comes through, it destroys everything it touches. However, though a forest fire decimates, it also leads to new life. Plants grow and thrive in the rubble, and eventually a forest may grow back even taller and stronger over time. Compared to a nuclear bomb that goes off and emits radioactive fallout for years to come, preventing life from thriving for generations.
Ultimately the lesson is to accept that were going to be forced out of our present circumstances one way or another, its just a matter of how, and why. The quicker we learn the answer to “why”, the quicker we'll understand the our circumstances and thrive in our new environment.
Does that make any sense?
Change also happens extremely quick, so quick that what once was disappears within the blink of an eye. Think of the footage filmed at the test of nuclear bombs in the 1950's. A house, then a tidal wave of force, and then nothing but rubble. In life what sort of change do we experience? Do we change ever so slowly like a plant growing, or are our lives like nuclear bombs?
I think most of us would agree that change within ourselves is traditionally slow. We grow slow, we mature slow, and we learn slow (some of us more than others, and by “some of us”, I include myself). However, if you examen yourself from who you were a year ago, are you the same person? Change maybe slow at times, but change happens eventually. Then there are those points in our life where a bomb goes off. Everything that once was becomes engulfed in the force of flames. When these sorts of bombs go off in our lives, things change forever. Think of losing a career, think of a car crash, think of a divorce, all are sorts of nuclear bombs that change our lives instantaneously.
I'm currently in a state of slow change. I can see my present circumstances changing all the time. In a way I feel my present life context is like a tube of tooth paste. I'm the paste being squeezed out of my comfort zone (the tube) and am waiting to see if I end up hardening on the porcelain sink, washing down the drain, or being thrown onto a tooth brush...(example of a metaphor taken too far). But what I really hope is happening is a third state of change, the forest fire.
The forest fire is a mix of slow growth change and the nuclear bomb. When a forest fire comes through, it destroys everything it touches. However, though a forest fire decimates, it also leads to new life. Plants grow and thrive in the rubble, and eventually a forest may grow back even taller and stronger over time. Compared to a nuclear bomb that goes off and emits radioactive fallout for years to come, preventing life from thriving for generations.
Ultimately the lesson is to accept that were going to be forced out of our present circumstances one way or another, its just a matter of how, and why. The quicker we learn the answer to “why”, the quicker we'll understand the our circumstances and thrive in our new environment.
Does that make any sense?
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