Imagine that you changed your toothbrush.
You got one that is a bit harder. Maybe, a bit softer. It has a different shape.
Its just a little change. A change that is maybe too little to notice even…
Yet except, your toothbrush wasn’t the only thing that you changed.
Now, every time you brush your teeth, the new toothbrush causes new changes. Maybe your teeth are more comfortable because it is softer. Or, maybe a little bit more sensitive because it is harder. Or, the shape may have made brushing your teeth easier, so now you are more comfortable brushing your teeth, and you clean them better. Or, maybe you are having to pay more attention to how you brush your teeth because the new toothbrush is a bit harder and it can easily hurt your gums. Or, exactly the opposite, now you are having to brush more forcefully because the brush is softer.
A little change in one little aspect of your life caused more changes, and even caused you to have to change how you do something. Something little, yes, but its still a change that is caused by another change.
It’s exactly the same with bigger changes
Just as things cannot stay exactly the same with smaller changes, things cannot stay the same with bigger changes.
Actually, the bigger the change, the bigger will be the series of changes it will cause or necessitate.
Imagine that you decide to become vegetarian for philosophical reasons. You will need to change your diet. Changing your diet will necessitate changing your food purchase habits. Your expenses will change, for the better or for the worse. You will need to pick what you eat when you eat outside. Or while visiting friends.
A lot of things must accompany this decision you took, in order to make it a success.
Imagine you did an even bigger change. Say, you left your corporate job which was grinding your life away, for good. You want to live your life in a more fulfilling manner, with less stress, with less soul-crushing mundane work grind every day, with people who did not lose the light in their eyes from working in the same manner…
You will need to change much more things than just your job…
Your expenses will change, your income will change. Your lifestyle must change to accommodate this series of changes.
Your social circle will change. You can’t hang out with the same colleagues anymore, nor the friends you made from work or people who you met through your work – you will grow increasingly distant with time, not only because you aren’t regularly seeing each other anymore, but also you and they belong to different sub-cultures: They are still in the corporate society, working and living by its rules and expectations and the resulting culture, you are now in a different sub-culture, which has a different set of rules and expectations to live by.
Even the behavior of your parents, old-time friends, your own family will change to some extent. Because not only you are in a different sub-culture of society now, but also you, yourself, are changing with your changing circumstances.
So you must be ready for the changes which change will bring
Then, to make a change in your life, you must be aware that it will cause or necessitate other changes. And you must be prepared and resolved to accept or make the changes necessary for making the initial change you intend to make.
Even before making that change, you should realize and accept that more than one thing in your life will change. And you must be willing and brave to walk forward in full awareness of that.
Make a list of what may change in your life when you change one aspect of your life, if necessary. Make preparations to accommodate those changes, if necessary. Make the big change and the accompanying smaller or bigger changes which it will bring only slowly, if necessary.
But always be aware that to change your life, you must be ready to accept the series of changes it will bring.
This awareness and preparedness can give you the power to make your life change a success.
