Wonder Why Wednesday - Adjustment

I haven't done a Wonder Why in awhile, but all around me people have been growing and changing and morphing (in not-disturbing ways, I swear - no extra limbs), and I've been seeing again and again all these videos and articles about people who have had life-changing events occur.

And it got me wondering...

How do you deal with change?

For me it depends on the nature of the alteration... was it planned, or was it foisted upon you?

Did you choose the change or was it chosen for you?

The common viewpoint seems to be that when the unexpected occurs, it's acceptable to fall apart, but that if it was something you chose or knew was coming, you should just suck it up and deal with the fallout.

I think that's crap.

Too often I think we shy away from being really open with our emotional responses - I'm guilty of this, for sure.

I've changed jobs many times in my life, and every time, even though I've chosen to leave, it's been emotionally draining to do so. The response to expressing this feeling, though, has often been "but you wanted to leave, aren't you happy?".

And?

I don't believe that just because you choose to do something, it invalidates your right to express sadness or regret, or even just to bitch about it.

Then there's the idea of change thrust upon us, altered states we don't choose but which are chosen for us.

The natural, acceptable response seems to be to lose one's mind over it... and if you *don't* freak out, people wonder if you're holding something back. Bottling it up. Keeping it in.

But what if that shock of change opens your eyes? What if it makes you appreciate your life all that much more completely, and put you in a state of serenity unmatched in your past?

The most completely perfect example of this was shown to me this week via a video of Randy Pausch, a Carnegie Mellon professor who died in 2008 of pancreatic cancer, giving his "Last Lecture" (it wasn't really, but that was the idea).

If you can find an hour to watch this, I can't recommend it enough... I promise you will be inspired.