“I can change.”
Every lying, cheating son-of-a-gun begging for another chance, not usually even a second chance or third or even a fourth or fifth chance, has used that line.
But you can’t change or you would have changed by now.
Most of us don’t want to change. We like our faults and defects and justify them to ourselves, and maybe to our spouses, or even psychologists and counselors. At some point, you have become the real you, flawed in oh-so-many ways, perhaps even deeply dysfunctional. You’re not succeeding at work, or you are failing in your home life, whether you live alone or in a family.
Maybe you don’t even like the city in which you live or you feel you are not married to the right person. You have endless regrets and failures and rarely enjoy your every day experiences. You are alienated from your true, best self and companionship with people with whom you really want to associate eludes you, for whatever reason. In short your life is a mess. You don’t have enough money, either, which breeds its own type of mental illness.
On the outside, you are wearing nice clothing and getting by, you’re not homeless, have food to eat, and from time-to-time, you even enjoy some of your constructive hobbies. You have a recollection that you were happy once, but it was so long ago you truly can’t remember the circumstances. The unfortunate reality is that you don’t know how to live.
That’s why change is so elusive – because you don’t really see the point. You go on and on trying the same coping mechanisms that haven’t worked for the longest time, but you refuse to give them up because you believe that changing will not do any good nor will it make your life any better either. Tragically, all hope is gone that you can get what you really want. You resign yourself to the fact that it would take a miracle to get what you really want, too. That’s right, getting what you really want is absolutely hopeless.
You realize you have met the enemy and he looks a lot like you do. You come to understand that you have made your own predicaments; you have done it to yourself. You also have become your own worst judge and jury, and sometimes executioner as well. You are in a hole and you think you cannot get out of it.
If you have been to “pitiful, and incomprehensible demoralization,” as I and so many other people have been, that’s only when the Almighty can make His appearance, becoming a reality only when He is a necessity. That’s when you find you can begin to take the journey from total reliance on reason to having some degree of faith or belief.
That hole that you found yourself in? The first thing one must do is to stop digging and many succeed at that. But unfortunately, left to our own devices, when nobody is looking, we often start digging again. We are bewildered. Why?
It’s because we want to change, but we can’t change. We are who we are. But what’s the reason we can’t change? You can’t change because you still believe overall that you are a pretty good person, and other people really need to change more than you do. You believe you are right, and the world is wrong. You hold deeply-held convictions that next time is going to be different, and next time you will have a bit more will power. You don’t fully understand that you have tons of will power, but when it comes to “won’t power,” you are sadly lacking. Again we must ask, why?
I believe religion teaches us that we have worshiped false idols and we have nothing with which to replace them. The idolatry makes one think he has so much, but in reality, he has nothing. How can that be here in America that I have so much, but I really have nothing? Well, if you are like me, and you have arrived at this point, you must conclude that you are not on the right path, and even though you can see the path and are close to the path and have visited the path and even have walked on the path, you are not committed to the path. You are not convicted. Why can’t you become convicted?
It’s because that you have not stopped to realize, and really work at it, and explore it, and debate it with yourself to a level that you can ask yourself, “what do I really want and can I get it by myself?” I found that when I got to the point where I realized that I had no chance in heaven or in hell to get what I REALLY wanted and that it would take a miracle for that to happen, I was prepared to make some progress at last.
If you can get what you really want, and I mean really want, then you can stop reading here; none of this applies to you. On the other hand, if you can accept or have accepted that what you really want is beyond your reach, then spend no more time trying to change. What you need to do to begin is to re-orient your worldview, which can be summed up by three little words: First Things First.
The amazing thing about First Things First is that my first things can and should be different from your first things. For many of us, the awareness that we could not get what we really wanted, that it would take a miracle, was about as far as we were able to travel. It was hopeless and we sought to blot out the misery or our existence by any means possible. However, when I realized that getting what I really wanted was impossible by my own guile and strength, an amazing thing happened: I found that I had hope after all and that hope would be that a miracle could occur for me.
I had to admit that I had been going at life too much on my own, and I could not do that any more. I would need accountability. I would need a plan, an action plan, with commitments to others. I would need someone who knows more about x, y or z than I do. I would put myself in the hands of an expert, or at least someone who is on the path already and, of course, ahead of me on the path.
So as I close out this year, I have decided that I’m not going to bother changing; I am pretty much who I am at this point and not everybody is going to like me. But what I will do is improve upon myself to make me more useful to my Creator and to everyone else. It’s the simple recognition that I can grow where I am planted, and have so much to offer.
I’m walking in the right direction, at last, and it’s become clear to me who are the “winners,” and I’m watching what they are doing, sticking with them, and doing what they are doing also. It surprised when I had the awareness that many of the people I was trying to emulate, many of them I did not like very much in the first place, which was not so bright, on my part.
So, I’m not worrying about changing – only improving upon that which I’ve been already blessed. That’s how I am spending my time and that’s a pretty good deal after all.
