Do Not Fear Change But Embrace It

A lot of people, myself included have a strange phobia with regards change. Some have it worse than others, I can happily change my dinner plans of an evening should things pan out differently than I had expected, but the prospect of changing jobs – and my own current job it one I do not enjoy at all – terrifies me. If I have to change my drive into work for road works or diversions I feel ill at ease for the whole day, and don't get me started about having to part in a different parking space than normal…. I'm not crazy really… swiftly moving back to the topic at hand.

Until recently my own personal pride and joy had been my DVD collection. Not because it was great, far from it, the majority of the films were watched once and haven't been seen since. But the total, 1700 was what I loved. It was something about me that was different, and for a while it was an obsession of mine. Buying movies. Not necessarily watching them, although that phase came too in the form of a 4am alarm so I could watch one maybe two movies before work.

Don't get me wrong I enjoyed it, and in a way many of those movies sparked conversations with an (ex)colleague who was an even bigger movie lover than me led to a number of story and novel ideas. Yet as the children came, so diminished the DVD time, and this coupled with my sudden move towards series. I blame the writer in me for this, the character development in a series is much more reflective of a novel arc than all but the very best of movies (of which there are few and far between).

However, sometimes, things must change, and this week (in me and my wife's never-ending quest to find the right interior layout for out flat – that is a post for another day) it is the turn of the DVD's. They are taking up too much space and are used so rarely that we have decided to sell them. We have already found a buyer and have agreed a price that is startlingly low, but these are harsh times we live in, and we really need the money could use the money for more important things.

This was a big step for me. There have been several times in the last 18 months where we have talked about selling them, but I always found an excuse not to do it. Not this time. I have taken out the movies that I love. Those that I can watch over and over again without it loosing that special appeal, and I'll tell you something that surprised me. I am even prouder of my collection now. It is smaller, but it is filled with movies that mean something to me. Either because they are great films, or because they hold some sentimental memory for me. (Santaclaus: The Movie – 1984)

In spite of my often pessimistic comments (which is the way my sense of humor developed over the years, I just can't help it), I truly believe that we can learn something every day. Whether it is a fact of the world or some inner knowledge about ourselves. Who we are and what we can do. Today I learnt that change is good. It may not always seem it at the time, or after, because with changes comes the need to adapt, one without the other will not work.

So I will end my post with a quote that I love and have often recited to myself at various moments of my life.

Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did so. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. Explore. Dream. Discover. – Mark Twain

I hope you are having a great weekend, and wonder, what is it you have learnt today?

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