One Lucky Soul: Change Is The Only Constant

Change Is The Only Constant by Omar Cherif, One Lucky Soul

After I was done with some sunset beach drumming on the Northern Coast of Egypt, I happened to have a small chat with a couple of younger folks. They asked about the single event in my life which has forever changed me. I said drug addiction. Then as I later reflected upon this notion, I remembered how change is constantly in an ongoing perpetual motion; how everything is temporary and transitory and passes like the weather seasons; how change is the only constant.   

  The essence of life is that it reveals itself moment by moment. When you carefully think about it, we are constantly changing. We cannot seem to grasp or sense the change as it happens, because we’re always in the midst of it. Only when time passes do we take notice that it had already occurred. But from moment to moment, everything is metamorphosing. You and I, for one, have changed after reading and writing those lines.

As such, whenever we feel overwhelmed by many things we have to do one should simply take the very first step. For small daily improvements and innovations can lead to astounding achievements over time.

Like growth, change in general can be hard and painful. Though oftentimes it only looks as such on the surface. Being part of the unknown, people tend to be afraid of change. So they fight it, resist it, and try to control it. This resistance is what usually causes suffering; for it creates sorrow and disappointments. Change, however, only becomes hard and painful when resisted.

Change should simply be first dealt with acceptance. It is reality being manifested and we should naturally allow it by diving into it head first. One should never be afraid of change or new experiences, because this is how we grow and learn through life.

Again, our whole life is based on change. From morning to night, from season to season, from year to year, everything is always growing and transforming. Yet life doesn’t stop.

Resisting change is like trying to resist nature: It will never work. What we can change are the variables. We can change our reality by changing ourselves, by changing our perspectives, as how we look at things. Echoing with George Bernard Shaw’s true words: “Those who cannot change their minds cannot change anything.” Indeed, the biggest fool of all is he who is unwilling to change his own mind.

But in the end, we can only control what we have power over. The rest, is not up to us. Hence there is no reason to worry about any of it. Do you part and let life flow as it always will.

That said, the only way to fully live the change and the new experiences is by not resisting; by joining the unavoidable dance; by embracing the chance to grow and learn which they offer us, especially if we want the change to go smooth and eurythmic. When we do so, we become at peace and in harmony with the nature of reality — synchronising with our ever-expanding universe.

Change, as we have seen, remains the only constant. Yet we can neither change the past, nor our ancestors, family, culture, or the outdated modes of thinking we grew up being surrounded by. What we can do is find a new way of looking at the present moment — the Here and Now. The new perception will lead to new modes of thinking, behaving, and living. This is how our present hence our reality can be changed. The present will then shape our future. Anything other than leading by example through our own self-transformation is a waste of time, energy, and life. For our journey is not about confronting or fighting old paradigms. The key is to create new, more evolved paradigms which will make the current ones obsolete.

A reminder of Buckminster Fuller piercing quotes: “You never change things by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

On that same note, it does feel reassuring to know that progress is rarely linear. As time goes by, matters are constantly reshaped. They take new forms and frames, which may eventually reveal novel paths, directions, and destinations. This makes progress an ever-evolving process.   

Every once in a while we will probably be required to make one major big step; yet most of the time the advancement and growth happen little by little. The small changes add up and we never get ‘there’ overnight — wherever your ‘there’ is.

Sitting alone on this gorgeous Mediterranean beach, I went on with my contemplation. I remembered how during my 20s, the major ‘event’ was experimenting with psychedelics. Then it was the drug addiction. And then working in the corporate world for 10 years, followed by leaving my comfort zone and travelling to the unknowns of the other side of the world. Then again it was the decision to take Arts in general and writing in particular as vocations.  So it is a culmination of choices and experiences, one could say. Yet I never let any of them define me.

Ten years from now, most likely there will be another event or two. Because, everything is continuously and persistently changing. This, as I conceive, is what having a full eventful life is about.

“The snake which cannot cast its skin has to die. As well the minds which are prevented from changing their opinions; they cease to be mind.”
― Friedrich Nietzsche