Recently, my relationship with a certain word has been in a difficult position. I thought it had mended after struggling for so long over the years, but was found otherwise. The word is “change”.
My journey to reach where I stand currently has been quite long. I started from being the boy who wanted a few constants in his life forever, and then I was the wreck, who seethed at the state of those constants after almighty time shaped them beyond familiarity then. Finally, I was able to understand that the “not so familiar” constants then, were not the only part of the equation that determine the changes. It took me quite some time to accept, that I changed too, which also changed the equation, making those constants more distorted than they were. Only then I was able to make my peace with the changing relationships with the people around me. With the fact, that how a friend for whom I switched a school once, is now a friend whose profile I find at times in my IG while scrolling. Or the girl for whom I travelled 400 km in a day once, is now someone I accidentally skipped wishing on her b’day. I am not saying that all these changes happened because of them or me. Change happens due to multiple reasons, but we are one of those reasons too. So when things start to feel not the same, the first thing that needs to be checked is us.
Before diving more into it, I need to clarify a basic thing which many times people assume about change. Change is neither good nor bad. Change is change, like a fact. The outcomes of it are what hit people differently. And because the outcomes have their relevance aligned with the people they impact; they can be molded by those people themselves. If tomorrow rain occurs in the middle of the advent of summer, which would be a change, its outcome to someone like me who travels daily would be pleasant weather to ride my bike in, but for a farmer who was waiting to harvest his/her crop over somewhere else, would possibly cry tears of blood. So the question that asks to be answered here is, how blaming the change can be the solution to the problem if the outcome depends on who took the impact? You cannot control the change. What you can control is always the outcome.
Coming back to my difficult relationship with change, it has been in this state due to the perceived meaning and notion around it. My life currently has a lot of factors that have contributed to the changes occurring in it. These changes are as varied as an increase in my curiosity about the social scenarios around me, to being in a relationship with an amazing person, to changes at work, and many more. These changes are connected through many different threads with different outcomes for me and people affected by me. As the outcomes differ for everyone, the impact they have on everyone is different too. But the difference between outcomes and changes are not very clear in the eyes of people, which has put all the burden the outcomes were supposed to carry, on the changes themselves.
Tell me honestly, if you never have been a part of a similar conversation, when a person in your group has recently started seeing someone, as a result of which they spend less time with you, and the talk that happens in the group is, “Since they have been in the relationship, he/she is changed. He/she doesn’t even hang around much.” The simple outcome, which was the lack of availability of the person, which due to any reason was an issue, is directed instead to the change. Even I have been a part of such conversations. Change is crucial to be understood to deal with the outcome, but that’s where the role of the change ends. It’s the outcome that needs to be addressed. At times there are some outcomes that can only be modified if the change itself is modified, or is changed itself, even then, the process has to be the same.
My relationship with the word started straining when the people around me, especially the ones closest to me, started negating the fact that the outcomes that they are being affected by, are not due to the changes, or me, but them. This stressed relationship between them and the outcomes is being transferred to my relationship with the changes, knowingly or unknowingly. It is also having different kinds of impact on me, both short term and long term, making me question if what I am doing is enough, where I do not even know what I am supposed to do. I find myself consistently defending the changes I am proud of, and that is not a healthy thing at all. When I start thinking about it from a third person’s perspective, it terrifies me to imagine what others would go through in the same scenario. I deem myself to be a pretty confident person, but I find myself questioning my own decisions and what other possible paths I could have taken, leading to even questioning if the changes in question are right for me in the first place. It is like carrying a burden that is not even yours, for no reason, and it is not helping anyone.
Which brings us to another question, to what extent are you responsible for mending the relationships of the people around you with the outcomes of the changes? This question does not have a simple answer, still to put it in a statement addressing the utmost priority, I would say, to the extent beyond which it does not have any deteriorating effect on you. You can only help someone if you are in the right headspace. With that sentiment taking top priority, there is no expiry date to the duration or maximum capacity barrier to the load you can offer support to. It requires patience and self-belief to navigate through it.
This piece was a part of therapy for my relationship with the changes in my life that I needed to put into a proper perspective, and I think it has solved its purpose. For anyone who reads it, I would like to urge you to keep asking yourself about the distinction and work towards outcomes of the changes, so that you and people around you could absorb changes, as they intend to be. After all, change is the only constant in this world.
ABSINRAW 