Time for change

Now that the election is over, I have some thoughts.

One word in this campaign was tossed about more often than a well-worn Frisbee at an over-crowded dog park: Change.

No matter which side, we were so desperate for "change" that we overlooked that change is what brought us to this juncture in the first place. We had countless opportunities to handle the "lesser changes" and - many times - turned tail and ignored our responsibilities. Now, confronted with the mountain instead of the molehill, we eagerly (?) embrace the phenomenal amount of effort it will take to put right what should have not been broken at the beginning.

No chastising is implied. We are humans and therefore fated to its nature; take the path of least resistance. Go with the flow. Do not today what can be postponed until tomorrow. We argue inconvenience or disproportionate effort. "I don't have the time, and there's always the future."

The piper is patient; no debt will remain unpaid.

It would make sense to handle smaller issues when they are indeed smaller. But that too makes us cranky. Yet, complaining about what is required to make a minor change is tantamount to whining about getting rained on while drowning in an ocean. We are immersed in change, ubiquitous, always, everywhere. Change is growth. Change is progress. Change brings knowledge and understanding.

Should we look forward to what it brings, rather than dig in our heels and hold tight to what no longer is, we are actually better-off.

I can no longer scarf down three gallons of mashed potatoes at Thanksgiving, and carp, "It's not fair!" However, I no longer waddle off to bed, grasping my distended midsection, asking mercy from God to make the cramping stop. I am healthier now than in those days, despite initial resistance.

I protest aging, although I knew it would happen and did very little to shore up against its current storm. Furthermore, in all fairness, this older, grayer person looking back at me from the mirror is, in reality, much more content in his current place in life than when he had much of life's road yet to come.

Change has brought me where I am, for worse - and for better.

We are representations of unceasing change. As living beings, we constantly reinvent ourselves, shedding the old, replacing it with new. Who I am in this exact moment is not even who I was when I started this article. Each millisecond brings with it refreshed opportunities for renewal.

Change is not a function of elections. It has no beginning; it will have no stop. We are forever bandied about in its vortex. Either enjoy or hate the ride, either alternative ends up the same.