It’s Okay to Want to Change
“You can't go back and change the beginning, but you can start where you are and change the ending”
– C.S. Lewis
The invitation to change usually comes from a simple, curious thought.
I wonder what would happen if I started doing that. I wonder what would happen if I stopped doing this. I wonder what would happen if I went there. I wonder...
We all have a form of this honest conversation with ourselves in our quiet moments.
If we allow ourselves to dream, without any internal judgment or external expectations, our mind naturally leads us toward change, progress, and growth, no matter how small.
Perhaps it’s ingrained in us due to evolution’s way of always finding ways to better adapt to our environment.
Perhaps there’s an unseen force that’s guiding us toward a future in which we’re closely aligned with who we wish to be.
Perhaps change and novelty are simply fun, and why wouldn’t we want to experience them?
Perhaps it’s a combination of all of the above.
Whatever the reason, I’ve read enough books, had enough conversations, and experienced enough personal ups and downs to realize there comes a moment when each of us wants to make tweaks to our reality and let our story unfold in a new direction.
As I write this, I think of Paul Millerd’s Pathless Path and how he quit his lucrative consulting job to travel to Taiwan, finding his love of writing in the process.
I think of Elizabeth Gilbert’s Eat, Pray, Love and how she realized she was no longer satisfied with the life she’d built up to her 30s, deciding to search for a better one in Italy, India, and Indonesia.
I think of Craig Mod’s Things Become Other Things and how, at an early age, he decided a better life waited for him in Japan—a move that took him from a small, working-class town in Connecticut to the trails, Shinto shrines, and Kissa cafés peppered throughout the Kii peninsula.
I think of the moment I sat with my then-girlfriend (now wife) inside a hut above the crystal-blue waters of Aruba, thinking to myself, “I could marry this girl right now. Huh, I should marry this girl right now.” That simple thought caused me to surprise her with a proposal a few months later in Santorini.
I mention each of these stories because they’re reminders that interesting things are waiting on the other side of that small, curious thought, beckoning us to explore a new direction—invitations to a brighter future, invitations to change.
The path there is always open, waiting for us to decide.