Change and Chance

You know what I've realized?

You can desire change all you want. You can ache for it, dream of it, plan for it carefully until you're so sure its on its way because a + b = c and math never fails, but then...there is nothing. No difference. Your plans crash and burn, your hopes are dashed. You're the same person you were before, just maybe a little more disillusioned.

Because you cannot will change, true change, into existence.

Change doesn't come on command. Change is not something you can summon with a deep breath, you cannot call it to you like a dog. Change is more like a cat, when you yell its name it may look over at you with a smirk, but very rarely will it actually approach.

Change is gradual. Change is slow-coming. Change takes its own sweet time, it's on its own schedule, and you have no idea what that may be.

I want change. I have been changing, yes, in some small ways, in some big. I'm not discounting my successes. But there's still this overhaul I want to happen, this complete turnaround of my fundamental being. I feel myself aching for things to be different, better, brighter, but I can't quite make it all the way there yet.

Because I'm not totally ready. The winds of change have yet to blow, and I can't force them to. And the more I try, the more change runs away from me, just like a cat who really could not give a fuck about my love.

I can't fundamentally change my personality just by wishing it so. I cannot change my ingrained behaviors and habits in one day, through sheer willpower or force. I cannot change who and what I am overnight, just by hoping.

No, life does not get better by chance. Change is what we all need to grow and improve. But I think change has an element of chance in and of itself. The timing has to be right, your efforts and hopes have to align with the moon and the stars, your head and your heart need to be ready at the same time.

And as we all know, you can't control your heart.

So if you're like me and you beat yourself up every time you can't seem to push past one of your self-constructed walls, if you can't seem to turn something around or get rid of a bad habit or push past a flaw, try to be gentle with yourself. Change will come when it's ready to. All you can do is want, and try.

And this realization has let me take a breath, take a pause.

I can't force change.

It'll come when it's ready.