Change is not always a joy

The last year has shown us that reality is not very predictable. What worked yesterday does not necessarily work today, and who knows what will hold next week or in a year.

Life as we know it can change in an instant, wrote the well-known author Joan Didion. Her husband of 40 years dropped dead just as they sat down at the dinner table.

Accepting that we have less control than we would like is a start. Accepting that the world is both chaotic and confusing, and still trying to contribute something good, is a good continuation. Because the world is not as comfortable as we would like it to be. Not all the time, anyway.

Sometimes we must have the difficult conversation, throw ourselves into the unknown, dare to influence the changes happening around us. Perhaps we come out on the other side to an everyday life that looks a bit more like something we can be proud of, something that brings out smiles and laughter and makes the heart beat in the good way. For a while. Perhaps that one good change we had not foreseen leads to something else that is good, or perhaps not; perhaps we just have to keep trying as best we can.

Because we can make a difference. However insignificant we feel, our choices matter. It is about daring.

Who would have thought that Martin Luther King's legendary "I have a dream" speech was without a script? Because it was. Or rather, he started with a script, until Mahalia Jackson called out to him from the crowd: "Tell them about the dream." That was when he pushed the finished script aside and gave the speech that has gone down in history as one of the most important of all.

Change is challenging, but it can also create opportunities, if only we dare. So why not make the best of being pushed out onto the ice? Let us see what lives in us. What world do we want?

Let us do yoga off the mat together!

Photo: Nicki Twang.