There is one thing that I can say about my life with absolute certainty is that it is a never-ending cycle of change. The second thing that I can say with about as much certainty is that if you try to fight against change, you will probably not win, and could make yourself very unhappy in the process. Personally, it has been clear all my life, that change has blessed me with opportunities and new experiences. I was well and truly happier than the countless times that I fought until I was blue in the face against the inevitable.
I ask myself, what it is about change that unsettles me?; is it the uncertainty? Is it the fear that ‘things will never be as good for me as they are right now’? Am I uncomfortable to face things that I am unfamiliar with?
Change came for me when I packed my life into a handful of boxes for the third major time in my then 21 years of existence and moved to Australia. I felt all the emotions I would otherwise avoid with an extra serve of fear, heartache, and resentment.
Leading up to the big move I tried to force myself to be the slightest bit excited for the new challenges ahead of me but all I could see were the things that I was being forced to leave behind. My friends that had become family, my life that I had filled with all of the things that I most enjoyed, my country which held my heart and my wounded pride from lack of success.
I cried more times than I am willing to admit. I so wanted to enjoy my last few weeks with all the people that I held dear, but so many of those times together were tainted by my stubborn unwillingness to see this monumental change as an opportunity to start fresh and reinvent myself. Instead I saw it as punishment of some kind. Inevitably, this mindset allowed me to be unhappy.
After gut-wrenchingly heartbreaking goodbyes, I felt like I woke up from a horrible dream to the realisation that I could turn what I was seeing as an adversity into the most amazing adventure. As soon as my attitude towards this change, changed. I stepped onto the airplane feeling a bravery I didn’t realise I had within me and I decided: I wasn’t going to fight it, I wasn’t going to make myself miserable over it anymore, I was going to embrace it, make the most of it and lead the best possible life I could.
I have been blessed with the chance to do something that very few people have the opportunity to do and given the option to go back and change anything, the only thing that I would change is my attitude.
It was the hardest thing that I have ever done and I was more scared than I ever imagined I could be. That change can be so unwittingly terrifying but within you is the strength and bravery to make it through. My attitude determined the impact it would have on me and what I was going to make of it.
Change was going to happen no matter what, but even when things seem completely out of my control, the one thing I had power over was my own attitude and how I choose to perceive the way that life is going to unfolds for me.
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new”
Socrates
What’s the biggest change that’s happened in your life when you have chosen to think of it differently?
Written By: Kylie Michelle
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