When you were a
small child and given the opportunity to have your choice of a dime or a
nickel, you would almost always choose the nickel. Why? Because
in your mind and with the knowledge you had, the nickel MUST be a better
choice because it was bigger!
However, as you grew older and presumably more cognizant of the value of
money, you would choose the dime because you now understand that the dime was
worth more in value even though it was smaller in size.
Change had taken
place within you even though you perhaps didn’t realize it at the time. Those and other changes continue to be made
each and every day of our lives!
You’ve probably
also heard the phrase “You can’t go home again.” This is the title of a novel written by
Thomas Wolfe and published posthumously in 1940. “The novel tells the story of George Webber,
a fledgling author, who writes a book that makes frequent references to his
home town of Libya Hill which was actually Asheville, North Carolina. George Webber has written a successful novel
about his family and hometown. When he
returns to that town, he is shaken by the force of outrage and hatred that
greets him. Family and lifelong friends
feel naked and exposed by what they have seen in his books, and their fury
drives him from his home.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/You_Can%27t_Go_Home_Again
What this helps us
to realize is that we CAN’T go back to a place where we once
lived or perhaps were employed, or went to school, or had done anything
else. The reason being that WE
are not the same person we were at the time we were there, nor is the place
from which we have left! Everything
has changed!
Have you ever been
able to return to your home town, to the house in which you grew up as a
child? Once there you begin to notice
that the house isn’t as big as you remember it being. The neighborhood is not the same as when you
recall the children (and you) playing in the streets after school or perhaps even
into the early evening. The people and the
area have changed, so much! The corner
drug store where you used to sit after school and drink a milkshake with your friends
is now a dentist office. The local fast-food
place where you had always met with your classmates on a Friday or Saturday
night has been torn down and is now an empty lot. Even the large empty field where the guys
would get together for a game of soccer or baseball or football is now a
parking lot for a small strip mall! All
these things and more have changed over the years. You cannot recapture the way things were in
the past!
There are so many
things in our lives that change over the years, some for the better and some
for the worst. Most of these things we
are unable to change or our circumstances don’t allow us the opportunity to
make the changes that we would perhaps like to.
But, within our
lives there are some things about ourselves, some things within us; our habits,
our way of live, our thoughts and our dreams, that we can change if we
so desire to do so. These are the things
that may truly define who we are, what we are to become. Will we make the changes that are necessary
to make us a better person, even to perhaps make an improvement in the life of
someone else? These are the decisions
that we will have to consider for any change to become a reality. Our greatest hurdle to making these changes
is the fact that we’re only human!
QUOTE TO CONSIDER
"Change within produces change without."
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