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Change is challenging and inevitable. As we age we tend to get more caught in our ways, our routines, and used to the same people, places, and activities. Change isn’t necessarily better or worse than our current situation, it’s just different. Ideally, we find ourselves moving closer to our goal with each adjustment either intentional or unintentional, that we make in our lives. It’s when having the choice to either stay the same or change direction, that we’re faced with some of life’s most pivotal moments.
To change something, anything requires an adjustment period. The change that we incur is only as severe as the meaning placed on it and the time we’d spent involved in the previous endeavor. When we have the opportunity to make an intentional change in our lives, whether it be in work, relationships, or lifestyle choice, the potential of the unknown must outweigh our current situation. In practice, this is nearly incalculable, as there is an infinite number of factors affecting each decision we make. Let’s take a job for example. Moving to a new job can be stressful, and there are fixed metrics that may make a position more appealing on the outside: pay, time off, travel, though there are many, arguably more important factors, that we can’t account for. Some of these factors like, job satisfaction, your boss, and whether or not the company sticks around or you do for that matter, all can’t be quantified. It takes faith to make an intentional change in one’s life, and constant change may be the only way to find your true purpose and what matters most to you.
There’s comfort in the circle of things that you’re familiar with. You take the same drive to work, you’ve been dating the same person, you enjoy the same outlets and activities, each and every day, within reason, you know what to expect. Like the seasons, simply allowing things to change and adjusting with them as they come and go, peaceful. We grow old, gain mastery in the skills we’ve engaged in, see the same faces and hear about their lives as they evolve, as with the seasons, adjusting with them as they come and go.
Like many of us, there’s a dissatisfaction with the way things are, there’s a desire to travel into the unknown for the possibility of something better. Yes, it’s best not to be in a constant state of unhappiness in this way, be grateful for the blessings you have, though humans didn’t get this far by not pushing the boundaries. The changes that we endure also include a myriad of sacrifices, some larger than others. The patterns of behavior that we’ve engaged in changes, and oftentimes so does the friends in our company, the activities we’re familiar with, and the day to day that we’ve spent so long engrossed in. Like an ecosystem, one change, even a seemingly insignificant one, may have an effect on the entire organization of things, for better, or worse.
Change is a constant in life, and it’s our responsibility to make intentional changes, to travel into the unknown like many people long before us, paving the way for our personal and societal future.
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Have you read the original anthology that was the catalyst for The Good Men Project? Buy here: The Good Men Project: Real Stories from the Front Lines of Modern Manhood
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