Over the years of my life I have struggled with who I am...whether that be my physical appearance, my introversion, my anger and resentment at the world, or simply my longing to become better at what I do......my life has been an unending struggle for change. More importantly, as a border-line-irrational control freak, I have spent my life trying to control and change every adverse circumstance I've found myself in...determined to experience only the ideal. Sometimes that looked like praying for change, other times it meant negotiating my way out of a situation, but most often it meant senselessly working my butt off......plenty good that did me (or not!)
But I have mellowed. Time has taught me the wisdom of letting it all happen; of letting the rain come, and dancing in that rain. Yes, I have learnt to dance upon my disappointments, smile at the storm, wait in the shadows for change. But that doesn't always mean sitting back and doing nothing. In fact, more often it means a rational approach to looking for growth opportunities. It means looking for the lessons the problem was meant to teach me and searching out ways to grasp those lessons. The biggest lesson I have learnt through all of this, however, is that so often we expend our efforts at trying to solve the problem or change the circumstance when, without fail, (a hundred percent of the times) the only thing we need to change in order to progress is our response to the problem.
So I have learnt to turn the search-light on myself. But I no longer struggle with who I am - my physical appearance or even my melancholic-choleric personality type. I have accepted that, and I no longer try to change who I am in order to fit in. Instead, I spend much of my waking moments crafting my response to life's circumstances. These days that looks like praying (..still), journaling, introspection, finding expert advice (mainly through reading), changing what I can and letting go mentally of the things I can't control. And I ask myself over and over again...how can I get better, wiser, stronger from all of this....and I look steadfastly for the answers.
In all of this, I have found a simple but trustworthy approach to life.....accept who you are (while you are on your growth journey) and work on changing your response to problems....the problems usually work themselves out. The struggle for change must never lead to the inauthentic or superficial. It starts with a face to face acceptance of who you are, unearthing the strengths you find and applying those to the problems life throws at you. You will find in the process that change comes, that improvement is in fact guaranteed......both to you and to your circumstance.
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