By Zile Singh

Animate and Inanimate, all change. 

It is a good time for you to change. 

Nothing is static. Change is the Law of Nature.  Everything is in motion. Within a second, the future becomes present and the present turns into the past.  Even the past is changing   on the scale of time.  Without change, the growth and development will come to a stand-still.  It is the Change that has brought mankind from the Stone Age to the Supersonic Age.  It is getting momentum day by day. The day and night, weather and seasons are changing in a cyclic order. “They must often change who would be constant in happiness,” wrote Confucius.  Bacon backed up this statement with these words, “Nothing is pleasant that is not spiced with variety.”  Over a period of time, the world has undergone a dramatic change in every facet of life.

Everybody wants a change.  You want happiness instead of sadness, beauty instead of ugliness, a mansion in place of a flat and even a Rolls-Royce to replace your bicycle.  The Change (as a noun) changes (to a verb); the drab into the lovely, the ordinary into the extraordinary.  Then, how do you set about it?  You change yourself first.  In this connection, the great Greek philosopher Socrates said, “The secret of change is to focus all your energy not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”   Therefore, change your way of thinking, change your attitude to life altogether. Change your habits of eating, talking, sleeping and waking up.  It is a thing you can only do for yourself.  No one else can do it for you.   Change is the other name of progress.  It is a fact that in the long history of man's progress through the centuries, the trend has been upward with adequate changes in the prevalent methods and thought process.  One can see that out of every struggle and endeavour for change, there has come a new dawn, a rebirth of life and thought.

It is a fact that people perceive the change in different ways.  Some are in favour and others not.  Those who are in favour argue that it has a possibility for a particular person to improve upon him physically, mentally as well as socially.  You can improve your physical fitness by changing your life-style from a sedentary to an active style.  Your reading habits about different places and countries might encourage you to take up travel.  Travel broadens your mental horizon.  You should have enough guts to change your dull life.  There is an art in being different.  It is not necessary that you offend your children, wife, husband or other relatives.  You have just to claim your right to speak and work whatever you feel good and right and act positively.  You want something to happen differently, something nice.  If you are fed up with work, to eat, to get up and sleep in the same way or feel a rut, it is better that you change it.  You can change your habits, including your habit of drinking excessive alcohol, your strenuous sports activity or even your profession if you are not comfortable with it.  You can start something new.  To saygood-bye to bad and boring habits is also a change.  “To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”- Winston Churchill.

According to Buddhism, everything in human life, all objects, as well as all beings whether in heavenly or earthly realms undergo change. It arises, changes and disappears. In Islam, “O Allah, change me until I am someone you are pleased with.”  Though  Sri Guru Granth Sahib, the holy book of the Sikhs focuses on spiritual truths and is not a rule book, the worldly issues and their treatment can change. There have been debates within the Sikh community about introducing changes and adapting with the times.  According to Hinduism, “Religion has a symbiotic relationship with culture and its history.  Therefore, it has had to adapt to the times, no matter how reluctantly, in order to survive.”

In conclusion, change is an indispensable part of our lives.  Therefore, people should accept this fact and try to learn how to adopt a change rather than to avoid it.  You cannot change what is going on around you until you start changing what is going on within you.  Progress is impossible without change.  Those who cannot change their mind-set cannot change anything.  Make a plan to get more out of life.  Make every day exciting.  Do something to make life fuller, richer, deeper, broader and different so that it can never become dull.

“Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through.  Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it.  This is a kind of death.” - Anais Nin

 Zile Singh is a well respected Columnist, Writer and a Vipassana Meditater. He has a Post-Graduate Diploma in Human Rights.  He can be reached at zsnirwal@yahoo.ca