Making change happen
Making change happen
Changes are beautiful. However, changes are hard. Changes take time. So they feel distant. We all aspire for something beautiful to happen to us and maybe are working for it. But no matter what happens, we all revert back to where we started. We wish for change to happen. We hope for change to happen and we wait for change to happen. If we just wait a bit longer. If only stars aligned at one perfect place. Maybe if I wait longer I will feel like doing it. But the resistance grows stronger with time. If only, if only it came to us itself.
We feel changes are a day or two in a year that come and go. Maybe because of that we keep on waiting wondering why are changes so hard to come by? Maybe we should have good luck to see them. Maybe the fortune teller was right, this year was doomed for us.
Sadly, we have waited for it longer than we had initially expected to. We have waited to the point that now it doesn’t make sense waiting like this. Nothing of a profound sense has happened. There is still uncertainity of it to happen. Is it supposed to happen like this or is there something different than this?
I go through seasons of fluctuations of high and low myself. Sometimes I see myself being at low for eternity. Waiting and waiting. Every day seems same. Every day I feel the same. How I wish desperately for things to change and how desperately I have been waiting. I wait and wait till I start to look at myself reflecting back to times when I had bounced back whenever I used to feel low, of what kept me going, of what was the exact equation to keep going from now. It took me back to the times.
It was during this time of pandemic. Our exams were postponed indefinitely at the beginning of lock down. Our physical classes were also halted indefinitely. That left us with
all the time in the world. We could do whatever we wanted. We could resume the
project that we had paused during our normal college days or even could start a
brand new project. We could devote this time to look after us, our health, well
being. The possibilities were endless. So what did the majority of us do
instead? Nothing. Let’s say we were tired by the classes after all.
Days
and months will pass then suddenly one day it was announced we will have online
classes. We were fascinated at first. It was a new thing, the talk of the town.
Slowly, we grew familiar to it until it came to bore us eventually as if it was
meant to. However, we continued and now it is still being continued while we
are having our clinical postings. But by the time our clinical postings
started, we were quite familiar with the topic and could make good use of our
clinical postings this time for learning.
I
had a strange realisation through this experience. We had eight months
before starting the clinical postings. But let’s come to think about it. What
are the possibilities that we will start studying during eight months on our
own? Let’s assume 50%. We are students after all. I hope you can relate to
this part. Every holiday feels less to us students. Leaving that part, let’s deal with the remaining possibilities. We still
had an exam to appear in from the previous year on top of that. That will
narrow down the possibility to 30% keeping it generously. We didn’t know when
our postings would start. It felt like haste to start this early. Let’s
add indifference to the equation. 20% possibilities. We had so many series,
dramas, games and news to catch up to. 10% possibilities left. Luckily we
started. But we couldn’t proceed further than that because it felt like a vast
ocean to sail on our own. We are left with 5% possibilities and that depended
on our motivation that never came. So practically there was 0% possibility left
to read for the upcoming semester. As always we would naturally follow that
rhythm inbuilt within us at the end of the day. Wondering to ourselves changes aren’t
meant to happen, changes aren’t meant to stick.
I just added the mathematical side to simplify it but there are so many factors that go into studying or making any sort of change long lasting. To pass 8 months wasn’t that big of a deal. We can pass it easily even without doing anything and we would certainly do that. Actually, to pass whole life without doing anything is not as hard as it seems either. We don’t need to do anything more just to pass time.
But
with the starting of our online classes, our life became restructured. We had fixed hours in a day that we had to devote to for them which began and end at particular time. And through them, we had
something to look forward to each day. We learnt new every day. We had our attendance by
joining the meeting. Attendance is strict in university. It sort of acted like
a guide to us on how to sail from there. The topics that were discussed, we
could go and read it ourselves now more easily as it became familiar from before. Still it also
depended on other factors like motivation, distraction but the thing was that
this time, reading didn’t come from waiting. Had we waited for making our mind
to read, we would still be waiting without touching a portion of the book.
Change started with changing our own pattern of how we were spending our life
daily, that was to add online class to the equation. Maybe it improved our
possibilities a little bit. But just adding merely an online class like this doesn’t make change. Isn’t
it? We all know that.
Our
natural tendency is to just lay without doing anything. We don’t want to put
our body into any stress and will try to avoid stress as much as possible.
Change feels like stress so we take utmost actions to avoid it. However, this stress is different kind of stress for we want it to happen. We cannot go on avoiding it forever. So,
how can we overcome this feeling of stress? What shall we do about it? I
realized maybe instead of waiting, make it happen.
Having online classes or having gym membership or being enrolled to course
doesn’t necessarily bring change on their own. They sort of act as catalysts.
It ultimately depends on us. If we didn’t utilize those online classes it would
be the same. Having it or not having it. Change rather takes place on a deeper
level. Motivation is good. But it is harder to depend on motivation always
because sometimes the same motivation won’t work and nothing big words work on
us when we are stuck at the misery of not doing anything. And maybe this is the one we were waiting for, the one I talked about in the beginning. Sadly we waited this long only to be turned down. But good news is maybe it isn't all about motivation. Changes rather take
place when we start changing how we live, by adding structure to our thoughts,
our feelings and our life. We can imagine how our school days used to be in
structure and remembering that of vacation days how it would go chaotic. The
time was the same, just how we used to live had changed. Does that mean our
life has to be held by some rigid rods and irons to add structure. No, it doesn’t
mean so. But what it does mean is that without doing anything about it, without
working for it, without adding anything to it, change won't happen in isolation.
The environment, the motivation, the purpose and the mindset all comes into play for making change happen. That includes making changes in our daily life from what we are spending time
on to what we aren’t. Where our focus is, where it isn’t. What are the thoughts
that are governing us? Are we being blinded by it and blaming in on circumstances?
Is this the only way to perceive the situation? Change rather comes from
doing things in a different way than we used to.
Having said that, change may appear burdensome to us now. But actually change is something that we should embrace at one point or another for change is the law of nature. Change seems hard. How a tree withstands snow and hail naked inmidst of winter. The tree wouldn't want winter to happen at all but if we keep on looking we can see the same tree covered with leaves, swaying with each stroke of wind in the spring. In the end, it is all worth it. Nothing worthwhile comes without hardship. And for change to happen, we do have to make it happen from the very core of us.
Change do take a lot of time that makes us give up in between. But I can assure you, it is not as impossible as we make out of it. Yes, changes can be bland. We begin to dislike the taste of it. But one thing for sure, it won’t come from waiting. There is no right time or perfect time for it to happen. It comes by changing patterns to how we are living now. To make change happen, behave like how the changed person will actually behave starting from now. And to do so, we have to start without any motivation. Just doing it even when we don't feel like doing it. Making change happen to us rather than waiting for change to happen to us.
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