Change. It’s a difficult word for most people to digest, but it’s a word we all need to start getting used to. Five letters have never seemed so beautiful and so horrifying at the same time. Between the years 2020-2021, we have been forced to adapt to changes ranging from wearing masks everywhere to protests and riots breaking out all over the nation. When most people think of the word “change” they worry about things being different than how they used to be and the thought of not knowing the result scares them, but I’m hoping my article can encourage more people to welcome change rather than be afraid of it. When some type of change is forced upon us, we get defensive and shut people out, do crazy things to avoid that change, or refuse to accept the change altogether, but by refusing to change, we are only postponing what we already know will happen. I talk about change as in the change of our environment, the change of our mental and physical state, and even the change of our characteristics. Our brains don’t fully develop till we are 25 years old, so we spend our teenage years developing who we are. Finding out our flaws and our perfections, the things we need to stop doing, even some things we’d like to continue doing and even have a future doing and with this being said, we are left to wonder, “why are so many people afraid of change if it’s a part of developing who you are?”.

Everyone fears change because it means the outcomes are unknown. Our brains are designed to find peace in knowing. When we don’t know what will happen, we make up scenarios and begin to overthink, ultimately creating a sense of worry. This being said, we find it hard to move on when something we have known comes to an end. Only when we learn to grow out of that mindset of letting go of what we are used to, to walk blindly into the unknown, and focus our minds on welcoming the new, is when we begin to mature and grow into the people we have always hoped to become. When you look back into your past and reminisce about the changes you have gone through in your life, the decisions you might’ve had to make, the people you might’ve gained or lost along the way, all the arguments, the pain, the happiness, the guilt, the many mixed emotions you might’ve had to battle in your life. How did you handle these changes? Did you reject the changes and let your life spiral? Only when we reject this new change, do we let our lives begin to fall apart as we fight the inevitable. I remember a time in my life when I rejected the change because I was horrified by what it meant. By rejecting this new change in my life, my mental health plummeted, my grades began to drop, and I started becoming someone I didn’t want to be. When I noticed the same thing happening to someone I cared about, I learned I needed to learn to accept this change for myself and to encourage the other person to embrace that change. Only then, did I find peace with myself and the people around me, and I started becoming a better version of myself. A few days ago I argued with someone I cared about and she was so fixated on not changing, even when she knew it was a problem and I asked her “Why are you personally afraid of change? You were so fixed on not changing even though you knew it was a problem. Why?” and she responded with “I don’t know”. If we don’t know why we are fighting something, we are just fighting to fight. She was pushing me away and she didn’t even know why she was so afraid to change and I wanted to tell her it was because I saw more in her than she saw in herself. I wanted more for her than laziness and bad decisions. I knew that she had more potential than that, but she refused to see that she was better than she made herself out to be and she fought me because I saw the opposite. When we fight someone who truly cares about us, we need to stop and wonder why we are fighting in the first place and remember it comes from a place of love. I fought her because I cared about her more than she cared about herself and in pushing my point on her and her pushing her point on me, we drove each other away, without a good reason why. By rejecting change, we both ended up getting hurt and that is the message I want to push on to my readers. When we reject change we hurt ourselves and the people around us. Accept change and grow from it.