The Beauty of Change

“To exist is to change, to change is to mature, to mature is to go on creating oneself endlessly.” -Henri Bergson

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I said the other day that I was looking for solutions. Maybe it’s not as simple as that. Solutions might work when you’re repairing your car, or fixing a leaky pipe, but life is more complex than that. 

What if… when we start to feel unfulfilled, or we’re fighting those obnoxious internal battles again, or we can’t seem to stop procrastinating – what we really need is change. I’m not talking about solution-focused change, just plain old change… 

Spending more time outdoors to soak up the complexity of nature… being more mindful in the morning by noticing the robust whisper of your coffee, or the crispness of your toast… taking a more scenic route to the grocery store and actually admiring the scene.

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I started in on the new book, A Million Little Miracles by Mark Batterson, and I started to skim. A short section titled “the law of requisite variety” caught my attention. Short and to the point… change can do wonders. 

Doing something different, learning something new, or even adapting to situations that are novel to us literally stimulates our brain and contributes to neuroplasticity – the brain’s miraculous ability to change and adapt throughout life.

Batterson compares these effects of change to working out, and how exercise can lose its effectiveness when you follow the same routine over and over. Your muscles have adapted, so you need to confuse them – you have to change it up. 

All I can say is that the more I learn about our brains and our minds, the more grateful I am to our creator. We are amazing, intricate miracles.

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Some people dread change, but I just love it. Think of the seasons. Imagine if it were always summer. Yikes! Too hot! But seasons offer us incredible variety.

Of course, seasons are a common way to represent change, so I decided to go for it. My default idea was to show off the colors of fall, but I wanted to challenge myself and see if it could still work in black and white.

I’m pretty happy with it. There were struggles along the way, but it came together. It begins with summer, which represents warmth, energy, and abundance – basically how we might live when everything is in sync.

Then fall arrives… a time of transition and reflection (Wow, that sounds like the season I’m in at the moment). We let go of the old and prepare for the new.

Winter is peaceful, quiet and still. It can be a little humdrum, like sitting in the doctor’s waiting room for way too long, but then BOOM… rebirth… the awakening of spring.

There you have it. Isn’t change beautiful?!

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Now that I’ve discovered how valuable change can actually be, I see that it’s not so bad to want to change things up all the time. That being said, I’m not sure what I’ll be illustrating or writing about next… but rest assured that it will be different!

Until then, thank you so much for viewing or reading. I hope you enjoyed something here!