Unchanged by change: dealing with the unexpected and losing the freak outs

If you are in a boat and the wind changes, it’s a sign of the need to reassess your direction and prepare for the impending new situation.  Ahh! Life is a bit like being in a boat. Except none of us really feel like experienced sailors, so the prospect of different waters often leaves us clinging to the sides, frantically paddling to just stay where things currently are.

Yet at our ages, everything is centred around change. New College. New Job. New friends. New wardrobe. New partners. New digs. New journeys. New challenges. New circumstances – the lists of unpredictability’s are endless. Life seems to move fast, and we might not always like it.

But I’m starting to think it is actually really good for us. We don’t get better at the things we do unless we are pushed to reach new challenges. I am always comforted by the memory of paddling to my father’s arms in the swimming pool when I was very small. Slowly, without me realising, he would move further away, till I realised I had swum a whole length by myself. While it would be a lot less scary to spend our whole lives at the pool steps , we’d never then get to learn how great it is to dive from the deep end.

We need to be brave, and it’s hard, and sometimes change isn’t always good.  But if it’s inevitable, we have to think about the way we approach it. It also doesn’t mean that things won’t eventually then turn out for the best. Sometimes it is these big changes that really define who we are.

 New job? Totally embrace it. New Home? Make it your nest. New friends? Well you can never have too many.  Unsteady waters ahead? Look where your compass is pointing  and stand firm in the wind.  We are never alone, and no matter how bad the storm, there can also be some really great sunsets at sea.


Miss V x