How to deal with “You’ve changed a lot”

“You have changed a lot”

“Yes, I have changed, because I am growing. I am sorry if you are still in same station.”

Every body continues in its state of rest, or of uniform motion in a right line, unless it is compelled to change that state by forces impressed upon it.

Newton’s laws of motion cannot go wrong atleast till it is proven to be not right

In life the forces are just your experiences which push you progress. And if no experiences, you are not living the life. So even though state of rest is a comfortable position for everyone, it won’t make you adaptable to the changing world.

So whenever someone say “You have changed a lot, you have forgotten all our good old nostalgic moments…this is not the guy whom I know long back”, just be happy that you have stopped living in their way, least predictable for them, of course the reason behind their upset while dealing with you. When the cocoons of comfort get broken, people are afraid to approach you. So they resist changes in you as they don’t want you to be seen as a different person.

Change is always expensive either in terms of effort or time or money or comfort.

The brain prefers to have familiar things or people to avoid unnecessary efforts over changes. It expects every life situation to be familiar as it is programmed to avoid the discomforts or uncertainties.  After all isn’t it tedious to improve our own thinking to accept and appreciate the changes in others.. Ah! [sarcasm intended]

It is not easy to accept changes. The very concept of “New” is not normally a catching one. Human have an inherent bias towards the conventional living. And hence it takes time for him even just to have peep over the “New”.  Like a 3 years old shy baby jumps on his mom’s hands and watches the guest over her shoulders, we have an inborn tendency to hesitantly observe the “New”. Sometimes not even before watching, adamantly walk away from that and more over raise voice against it very offensively.

Infact life without change will be very monotonous. But still people are reluctant to accept changes as always there is some sort of chaos or discomfort associated with a change. Not everyone fears to change, but a good majority of them preserve traditions, prefer to be standstill and watch suspiciously those who are changing.

The moment you question elders, people say you have changed a lot, you are antagonists etc.  It is just that they are afraid of losing their control over you. Or sometimes their stereotypic minds cannot accept your innovative thoughts.

There are naysayers who comment on your change. They should have said it based on their insecurity feeling or jealousy [maybe they don’t want you to be as popular as Sachin] or low wisdom or to prove something or just for offence or just to let you down so that their survival chances are increased. [May be he is Darwin fan, who follows “survival of the fittest”]

“We see the world, not as it is, but as we are: Stephen R. Covey

We grew up with certain norms and perceptual filters. We perceive the world in the way we just sees it, applying our own confirmation biases. We conveniently believe that our perceptions are right and all others are rubbish. If we could only wear his or her shoe and observe the situation we can understand the perspective differences. We will stop judging them if we could feel how they experience the situation. Infact judgement is one way of our thinking. We cannt completely get rid of that and no need of that too if we have sole base for our thoughts.  The problem with judgement arises when it is done just to satisfy our ego forgetting the actual facts, a stereotypical judgement.

So don’t be afraid to judge freely as long as you know how and when to do it. And it is equally important to get over the fear of being judged as well. Let them say, you have changed. Take it as key for introspection. Anyways you can’t please everyone. Your own energy is wasted while being a too nice boy or a nice girl.

Actually, you may not be changing the core attitude, but learning how to deal with something in a different way. So you can even tell them, “I haven’t changed, just grew up or you never knew me before.”  As long as you feel ‘the changed you’ to be a better version, take their comment as a complement.

Ignore the naysayers as changing is a part of growing up. Tell them “The world itself has got increasing entropy [randomness]. It cannot have things stagnant or constant for long run. If so why you should expect an unchanged behavior from me?”

The more experiences you get in life the wiser you become actually. So live in the moment without compromising self compassion. Definitely, todays rights need not be a better option for tomorrow as the world itself is changing and releasing many unknowns. So have a little room for flexibility too for tomorrow.

So tell me, how are you gonna respond on hearing “You have changed a lot man”.

It was my friend Josh [ blogs at CHAI & BISCUITS] who asked me to write on this while responding to my post on “I just don’t have enough time” – A big white lie. Thanks Jo.

Pic : Google