Change doesn’t have to be monumental…. (7Pi7D)

Like every other person on this planet, I’m pretty decent at belting out advice on how you can become a better person and in all honestly I might even do it more frequently. My closest of friends will probably vouch for that. That said, it makes redundant anything else I say on the topic of change. When I realized this I hit this major wall in my thought process and could not for the life of me figure out what it was that I wanted to write about. I remember sitting down and firing up a Word file so that I could draft with ease. After that point I probably sat down through anywhere between 8 to 12 drafts, and suffice to say I was pleased with none. I did not want to write anything generic, but I couldn’t think of anything. I didn’t want to give T a crappy article either. Sometime after the millionth draft I might have figured out what it was that I want to convey. Emphasis on the word ‘might,’ as I still may not have. I thought that maybe if I could relate this to the audience through a personal medium, it’ll be better that way. So here goes:

A while ago I was going through a rough patch. And I felt like I needed to change myself in order to get through. I have no artistic talents, I can’t draw, write prose or poems, play an instrument, I listen to fairly generic music (with the odd different taste here and there), I have regular hobbies, nothing too fancy, ya know? So I thought to myself, “What’re you gonna do chum?” The answer was fairly instant. “CHANGE YOURSELF!” Sorta like Extreme Makeover, minus the botox and excessive surgeries.

So in secret I started writing poems. Yes, this is the first time I’m mentioning this in public, EVER. I went on this ridiculous search for rare and uncommon music and began downloading and listening to it. One of my friends played guitar and I watched him and tried to practice with him. I would scrutinize my writing style and bitch and moan about how terrible it was (I still do, but to a much lesser degree). This was roughly the time where I started reading a lot more blogs, trying to improve my own style.

Either way, this carried on for a while. Some of these attempts died out, like the guitar and the poems, but some stuck around like the music and the blog hopping. At its end I realized I had gained very little. I still felt the same, and still thought the same.

I guess it was around this point where I had my little epiphany. I’m not a bad person. I’m a cross between a jock and a geek, and I like it that way (I’m actually kinda chuffed about it ) I love my football, scuba diving, paintball, cricket etc., and at the same time I could sit at a PC all day and keep me occupied (I’m pretty sure I’m going to get glasses soon. Glasses with thick frames.) There’s nothing that I needed to change about myself to feel good about myself, or the way I lived my life.

But there was something that HAD changed. My perceptual process had changed. As a person, I am the same I was then, but I now think a bit differently about my past and present than I used to and I guess it’s made all the difference in the world. Why should I blame myself for any misfortunes or bad experiences in the past? Most of them were things I was witnessing for the first time, so I had no background to refer it to. Now I know what went wrong, and where I was and/or wasn’t wrong. Since I didn’t know any better, I can’t be blamed for it then. If it happens again and I make the same errors again, then *doh!* it’s my fault. But you can not let past misgivings or experiences define how you think about yourself, but you should let it define how you act or will act in the future.

Life is like a First Person shooter. You run around, complete your objectives, get your rewards, fight off bad guys, recover from injuries, find the treasure, save your best friend (or the damsel perpetually in distress) and occasionally you cheat. Throughout the course of this game, you’re thrown choices and you have no experience in how to pick ‘em. But you do anyway. Some of them turn out good and others turn out bad. But none of them are your fault. For the most bit, we don’t know any better. So if you did it right once, stick with it. If it turned out wrong, don’t fret about it, but don’t do it again. Stop blaming yourself for anything that goes wrong in your life, and make sure it never happens again.

If you make a mistake or have an unpleasant experience don’t change the person you are. Change the way you think about your mistakes and experiences. That’s all you need to make it better.

I realize that this post may be off-topic (I hope it’s not!) and for that I apologize. But it’s something that’s been on my mind for a few months and I’m glad I got it off.

Here’s to making something out of 2009.

Cheers!

M

Hi! The pseudonym’s MaliZOMG and I blog @ Gone Fishing, Without My GPS. Today’s guest post was on me, and I hope you enjoyed it.

Tagged as: Arts, barack obama, blogging, Business, Changing Directions without my GPS, democratic party, Dubai, Extreme Makeover, family, First-person shooter, Games, Global Positioning System, google reader, Health, history, India, Kids and Teens, London, Me, middle east, On the Web, Paintball, Personal computer, Scuba diving, Summer, Thought, UK, United Kingdom, United States, USA 2008, Video game, Weblogs, weekend