Change can bring opportunities
Editor’s note: While Charlotte Lankard is away, The Oklahoman is highlighting a few of her previous columns. This column originally ran Sept. 6, 2016.
“Savor the last warm rays of summer sun, fresh fruits and splash of water fun, for fall’s sweet breath is in the air, and round the corner, silently waiting — winter’s icy lair,” wrote my friend Vickie.
The change in seasons always reminds me that life, too, is filled with transitions. Aging, careers, relationships, illnesses, deaths. Some are planned, others catch us by surprise.
How a person responds to change varies. One may see it as a threat while another may decide to explore the possibilities that lie ahead. Change can be treated as a problem to be borne, with angst, or it can be approached as a challenge that can enrich one’s life.
In times of change, it can be helpful to find someone you trust with whom to speak and from whom to get feedback. The dialogue may even open up the possibility of options you’d not considered.
You may be helped by finding a support group, or reading others’ stories. How did they survive? What helped them? What hindered them? Where did they get strength and inspiration?
Change — whether chosen or not — can bring new life. You may discover strengths you didn’t know you had. You may learn to be more flexible and resilient, more self-aware and more compassionate toward others. Often you find yourself re-examining your priorities.
We need not stagnate. We need not repeat the life we’ve already experienced. Theologian, historian, playwright and novelist G.K. Chesterton wrote, “Real development is not leaving things behind, as on a road, but drawing life from them, as from a root.”