BECOMING MORE OPEN TO CHANGE

How we see the world, and how the world sees us, is an important part of our daily lives. In this, as in many areas of our lives, we can have more control than we think we have.

For example, when we first meet new people, we have only the information about them that is front of your eyes. Most people (sometimes weirdly) present themselves by the way they dress.

Most of us, upon seeing a stranger, almost unconsciously, use visual clues and make judgments about the person based on how they are dressed. We actually decide whether this person is approachable and might be friendly by the way they have chosen to present themselves to the world.

Since we use these visual clues to determine how we respond to people, visual clues also give us some indication of how a new person we encounter sees themselves as well as, how they want to be identified. A strangers attire and beyond this, their facial expressions therefore play a major role in how comfortable we feel when we first meet them.

Therefore, when you wish to make changes in your life, particularly those relating to how other people might perceive or respond to you, you might begin by making changes to your appearance.

A haircut or hair colour change is one of the easiest ways to make changes to your appearance. In clothing, accessorizing might give each outfit you wear a focal point which might work to make you more approachable. An interesting accessory, T shirt or signature piece might work as a conversation starter the same way the book you are reading sometimes does. By changing the style of clothing, the colours you wear or by accessorizing, you might create a new image and impression about yourself.

Larger changes to your life, however, will likely involve being willing and able to making changes beyond ones to your attire or overall appearance.

The other day, while waiting for a travel agent I overhead the preceding customer discussing possible travel plans. I couldn’t help but hear her comment several times that some of the suggestions being made wouldn’t work. As she was leaving I suggested a couple of possibilities that had worked for me for European trips.

According to this woman, she was a light sleeper; she wouldn’t know how to get around by herself; she didn’t think she could find a train station (wherever she went) and besides she wouldn’t know how to buy a ticket etc. By seeing limitations, instead of possibilities whenever a suggestion was made to her, her options became rather limited.

In other words, it was easy to see that, making a fourth trip to England might be all that she might hope to manage when all of her (self-imposed) limitations were considered.

I have recently realized that if you have decided to limit yourself and either cannot, or will not, see a way beyond your comfort zone, your life will not have much room in it for new things. At the same time, other people might see you as very timid and afraid of life.  

It is not unusual, even today, to speak with people who have never travelled outside of their own countries, you might also notice that some of these people also have a provincial perspective about life. I suspect that this could extend to an unwillingness or inability to try new things.

Although, I personally do not spend much time worrying about whether my behaviour meets with someone else’s approval, it occurs to me however that some people do. Not everyone can say that “until someone pays my bills, I am not very interested in their advice about how I run my life”.

Whereas in my own life, it is important that I can accomplish what I need to do each day without a lot of complications and I continue therefore to look for ways to make life simpler; I can see that other people might not feel as comfortable as I do in initiating things themselves. Others might also be uncomfortable about spontaneously introducing new people and things in their lives.

Each of us probably has a ‘comfort zone’ which gives a structure to our lives and lets us get through our days without too many complications. We draw upon our past experiences, what we have learned and what we know, to determine how to approach the situations we encounter each day.

What works for one person might not work for someone else. What seems easy for one of us might not be for someone else.

Something I find easy might not be as easy for someone else or vice versa for something which they accomplish with ease and I could not.

Meanwhile, regardless of our comfort zone, the ‘global village’ brings more of the world into our lives than ever before. Our work environment may introduce new ideas in our lives. More than ever before, Technology and the Media continuously present us with a lot of new information.

When we are willing and able to allow new things into our lives, we have a chance to be learning something new all the time. In fact, I wonder whether our ability to accept and welcome new ideas might actually determine how much of life we are able to enjoy.

How we see the world around us probably depends upon how comfortable we are with change and how open we are to new ideas. Some people might say the more something changes, the more it remains the same. That is the view that someone who feels that whatever happens it’s just the same old thing. 

Others change their hair colour and environment as often as they can.

Although, personally I know that constant change would probably be too much for me, I personally admire the openness and ability which some people have to accept frequent changes in their lives.  

That one person is able to make changes easily and another isn’t won’t alter the fact that life around us brings changes to us and that living actually involves change.

I suggest therefore that we keep the things in our lives that work for us, but try and not limit ourselves by trying to keep everything the same as we think it was before. That would ultimately be a futile struggle.

Possibly a change in hair style or clothing is all we can contemplate initially. Our willingness and openness toward learning about something new however, might go further towards making our lives more interesting. Among other things, it could give us something new to share with others,  enable us to become more open to letting other new ideas into our lives and might ultimately bring us a more interesting future.