Afraid of Change

Life offers so many learning opportunities to see how some people choose to live. A person whose father is quite ill now, started business years ago. As the employees have been making changes to help maintain the business into the future, this person is having great difficulty in these changes. The more changes that are occurring, even ones necessary to move the business forward, he is trying to keep it exactly the way it is, like a

shrine to his father like the old days. By deferring it back on his father, it seems he does not own that it is his choice not to change anything, like he wants to suspend time and space.

How often do we do that? Being afraid of change, fear of losing the comfortable familiar and of moving on with life into the unknown. I equate it to Charles Dickens’ story, Great Expectations, where Miss Haversham’s fiance’ left her at the altar heart-broken. She left everything as it was as a reminder of that painful day, even stopping the clocks at 8:40 am, wearing her wedding dress, one shoe, leaving the wedding breakfast and cake exactly where it was.

Coming to terms with what is can be challenging. There is fear of moving forward, of doing anything that could change the status quo. And if we did change anything, there can be a lot of emotion and feeling that it could be seen as a betrayal of the person who created the business, the hope that the person who hurt us, or we loved, will come back and we did not want to disturb anything while waiting for their possible return. Changing directions may mean that we have moved on from that person, that pain, that disappointment, giving us the opportunity to live our lives more fully. It also means that we have let go of the illusion that we can control situations, places, spaces and time. We can really be in charge of ourselves.