Learn, Grow, and Change

Issue #32

Life is about growth and change as individuals. If we think the same thoughts at 50 that we did at 20, we have failed to grow and mature in our thinking. We have wasted our time here on this earth. If we manage people, paint the same paintings, or write the same stories at 50 that we did at 20, we have failed to grow and develop our skills. We have wasted the precious gifts we have been given.

I am much more accepting of life today than I was when I was 20. I now take the long view and realize the world will go on long after I have left this world behind. When I was eighteen, I thought the world was about to end because of racism, political turmoil, and war.

How have you changed? What have you learned? What did you learn yesterday? What do you still need to learn? Have you stopped growing? Are you simply existing — waiting for the end to come?

In the summer of 1966, I saw Muhammad Ali walking on a street in downtown Chicago. He was 24 years old, and I was seventeen. He was already a world champion boxer, and I was a teenager from a small farming community who was beginning to engage with the world. He had already refused to be inducted into the armed forces and was stripped of his title. My first protest march was two years away.

More than 30 years after I saw Muhammad Ali, I met one of his daughters at a restaurant she owned in a suburb of Chicago. I was there to give a speech on the privilege of service. Life had come full circle.

Life is about the people who cross our paths, the relationships that we choose to develop, and the memories we acquire. Life is about learning, growth, and change.  

Most people, at some point in their lives, desire to change the world—to change how the world works and how others behave. Some outgrow these desires, and others spend a lifetime of activism. Some become cynical and drop out. Others rant and rave against the system. Yet few of us ever think about changing ourselves.  

The perfect example is marriage. I bet everyone who marries attempts at some point to change the behavior of his or her spouse. Maybe it is putting down the toilet seat. Or trying to change their spending habits. We have all tried to change a spouse, and nine times out of ten, we have failed. You cannot change other people easily because most people resist the efforts of others to change them. If you want the marriage to be successful, you must learn first to change yourself. And if you are successful, you will change the other person in the process.

As creative leaders, we must learn to work on ourselves first. If your writing or your paintings are rejected, don't blame the editors and the gallery owners. Look inside.  What do you need to do differently? What do you need to change?  

Lasting change comes from within, not from without. What work habits do you need to change? What habits of procrastination do you need to change? What attitudes do you need to change? Changing a habit does not happen overnight. Some experts say it takes at least 21 days to change a habit. Changing yourself is not easy, but it can be done with hard work. You can change who you are by changing what goes into your mind and heart.  

I believe the heart drives change more than the brain. Most people know intellectually that smoking is harmful to one's life, yet many people are unable to stop it. You have to emotionally want to change for change to happen. Our emotions are the basis for change. Love for another person can motivate someone to change his behavior. Fear can also be a powerful motivation for change.

We humans love to measure time and reflect on where we have been and where we want to go.  If we have not published our first book by age thirty, we may never publish a book.  If we live to be sixty, we are suddenly over the hill and unemployable.  Unless, of course, we are running for President.

My time on this planet has taught me that as much as things change, they still remain the same. What once was old comes back into fashion, and what we believe to be new and exciting will soon fade away. The story you are writing has been written before, and the painting you are painting has been painted before. And yet each of us must believe that we are the first, that no one has done this before.  

We may be celebrated in our lifetime but forgotten after we die. Or we may be unknown in our lifetime and remembered for hundreds of years. Time has a way of playing tricks on us. We think we have mastered it, and it sneaks away from us.  

Remember that nothing stays the same, and nothing changes. Don't worry about the passing of time. Be happy with who you are and who you have become. Forgive the you of yesterday, celebrate the you of today, and have hope for the you of tomorrow.

Plant seeds of hope in the hearts of others.