Caterpillars and Butterflies

“Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced.” - James Baldwin

I love that quote. It has a neat little split personality. It can be used for motivating personal change as well as for motivating world-wide change. Let’s deal with personal change, I don’t tackle changing the world on Friday’s - it’s my day off.

There are all types of people in the world, but IMO the most useless individuals are those who never change. The type who never allows a personal metamorphosis to take place. They’re caterpillars who’d rather creep along on their bellies with non-changing scenery rather than soar through life with ever-changing scenery.

WHY would a caterpillar choose to remain a caterpillar rather than progressing into a butterfly?

Would it be afraid of change? Not know where to begin? Could it not even realize that it needs to change? I guess there are lots of possibilities and even more excuses.

Personally, I believe most of us KNOW what we need to change. I also think we have a pretty good idea of where to START. I think we just get too comfortable. We get so encased in our normal routine that shaking out of it scares the bejesus out of us.

In reality, the thing that should scare far more than the bejesus out of us is this:

When we change, we broaded our world - we literally push our boundaries further back and make our horizons much wider. By contrast, with each passing day that we allow ourselves to remain in our comfortable quagmire of mediocrity, our world shrinks a little more.

Have you seen the commercial for shrinking food wrap, where the air is sucked out of the area surrounding the food and szwwwwoop, the only thing left is the food wearing it’s tight, plastic casing? If we stop growing and stop reinventing ourselves, we’ll be left with similar mobility.

Now that’s scary.

Make each movement count double,
~Joi

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