Adapting to change

The only constant is change, goes the saying. And how true it is! We can overlook change, resist it, or adapt to it. The latter is by far the best.

Life changed this week for the family and friends of the 23 people who died and 20 who were wounded in a suicide bombing targeted at the US Vice President visiting Afghanistan. The news stories did not report any remark by the VP about the loss of life. Was he ignoring or resisting the change taking place?

It is easy to resist change when we become rigidly focused on a task and forget to step back to review where we are and what has changed around us in the meantime. It is also easy to forget that usually there is more than one solution to a problem.

Adapting to change seems hard but is more satisfying, I found. Embracing change means letting go of something every day, even more than once a day. The result is more freedom, less attachment, and being more attuned to my environment. While I am deliberate and mindful in each moment, after I have dedicated my action I let go of it, and I am free again to choose the best action in the next moment.

The human mind creates illusions of structure and unchanging truth. However, in reality everything around us changes, and even our own bodies are made up of changing energies of varying densities. The world seems stationary to our eyes and senses, but is in fact spinning fast all the time, so that is another optical illusion created by our mind.

When we decide in favor of adapting to change, we relegate the mind to be our servant in stead of our master, and we start trusting our intuition more. Once we learn to listen better to our inner voice, every moment and every circumstance in our life can teach us a lesson or send us a valuable message.

I decided that adapting to change is the best way to live.

Photograph: Delicious dish waiting to be eaten in Warung Enak, Ubud. Once I ate it, I moved on.