G -SOME THINGS REALLY NEED CHANGING

We've spoken of how things have changed over time and how rapidly some things are changing right now.  The fact is some things still need changing.

Change is often as frightening as it is inevitable.  A certain biologist has noted that the human mind treats a new idea the way the body treats a strange protein, it rejects it.

What often happens in the face of change is the establishment of firm battle lines between those who proclaim the necessity of change against those who want to protect the status quo (the way things presently are.)  Virtually all of the changes that have taken place during the last half century– changes that have begun  to bring more justice and rationality to the issues of racial and gender equality, the needs for environmental protection, the rights of the disabled, the safety of consumers, refinements in the political process, etc. – that most of us today would acknowledge are good and appropriate changes, were strongly resisted by one group of people or another who preferred to keep things as they were. 

It's been said that the people called "liberals" look to changing the present in the interest of a better future, while the people called "conservative" are those who wish to return to some better era of the past.  While that's a gross oversimplification there is an element of truth in it.  So the question is never "Is change in order?" but "What kind of change is in order?"

In  this new millennium, even in the next decade, we can expect to hear calls for more changes. And we will need  to assume our personal positions with respect to those calls for change, determining as best we can which of those changes would be good, which would be only for change's sake, and which would move us backwards. 

But it's not just changes in the larger society that should occupy our attention, but also changes in our personal lives.  Here the battle lines can be much the same within our own psyches, between the challenge to make personal changes v.s. the desire to defend the status quo. 

The inclination of most of us is to stay with what is familiar rather than venture too far into the unknown.  Except for our adolescent years there isn't much of a rebel in most of us, but I want to suggest that the rebel in us need nurturing and support, not for the sake of making trouble, but for the sake of seeing and addressing Reality more appropriately.  Sometimes we stay too long with programs and procedures that once were useful, but have now been outgrown.  It' a more serious problem than wearing last year's style; it's trying to wear last year's fit. 

Psychologist Abraham Maslow has spoken out of his experience as a counselor and calls for "a different kind of human being, one who is able to live in a world which changes perpetually, which doesn't stand still."  He says "we need to make ourselves over into people who don't need to stabilize the world, who don't need to freeze it and make it stable, who are able confidently to face tomorrow not knowing what's going to come and who can improvise on that situation which has never existed before."  In other words the times call for some  new ways of thinking.  "Thinking out of the box" it's called.

This is a theme to which we'll return, but at this point I want to affirm that the things that are not quite right or complete, in the world and in your personal life, need not remain as they are.  Perhaps we'll have to battle against the "nothing-can-be-done disease" to which we can easily fall victim.

And if ever you choose to speak out or act out in the interest t of making the kinds of changes that need to be made, you'll meet with a lot of opposition.

Remember what Mahatma Gandhi said: 

"First they ignore you.  Then they laugh at you.  Then they fight you.  Then you win."

He also said "Almost anything you do will seem insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." Sociologist Margaret Meade said, "Never doubt that a small group of committed people can change the world.  In fact, it is all that ever has."

What sort of changes - or perhaps, what's one change you'd be willing to devote some time and energy to  bringing about?

(Here's a tough one:)  What would you be willing to give up your life for if necessary?


NEXT TIME:  THE INCREDIBLE PRESENT MOMENT


TOOLS AND APPROACHES- G

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