Change - A Perspective

Yesterday, in Lexington, as I sat on the cold ground with the occasional snow flurry drifting by, staring at a blackened and weathered headstone of a confederate solider in the Stonewall Jackson Cemetery, I reflected on change For surely this young man had experienced change, great and tragic change. He is long dead and I am not. I do not fear death. I fear the process of death for I know there is life afterward. So, I wondered what he thought as death unavoidably approached, his life changing forever, helplessly realizing that inevitable change was being thrust upon him. This sad thought caused me to think about the change that has recently occurred in my life.


As I thought about everything I’d recently gone through, from being a multi millionaire two years ago, to bankruptcy, to leaving my alcoholic wife with my last hundred dollars, to beginning all over again, I realized that change exists in two forms. Change is either thrust upon you or you initiate it. I’ve experienced both.

My wife and I initiated great and financially successful change. Then change was unexpectedly thrust upon us, much like this young solider. We retaliated by initiating change to the falling real estate market but our change was too slow. Change is like that. Sometimes it hits you like a run away train. I wonder if this solider came to realize this too, in his last conscious moments.

Finally, after many months of internal anguish, I thrust change upon my wife for she wouldn’t initiate the change she needed to make. I left her forever, death had come to our marriage, and the process was painful.

Since then, I’ve come to understand that it’s far better to initiate change, to actively make something happen or else things will happen to you, sometimes good, but mostly bad. Unfortunately, you can’t initiate change in another. You can try, as I did, but it will always fail. No, you can only thrust change. It’s either going to be accepted or not. And if accepted than it’s up to the individual to initiate that change. That’s the best you can hope for.

Yes, I thrust change on my wife. It failed. But I also initiated change for myself and by doing so have now found that I’m in a far better place; a place full of opportunity; a chance to follow my dreams; to hopefully touch someone’s soul who desperately needs to be touched, to love and to be loved. I’ve experienced the fearful, terrible dying process of my now dead marriage. But that process is over, the fear is gone, death has occurred. And there is life after death, a fulfilling and bright loving life, all because I initiated change.

So, as I sat there on that cloudy day, the occasional snow flake landing on my journal only to quickly melt away, I thought about change. I shivered as I sat on that young man’s grave, not from the cold, for I was wearing a warm coat. No, I shivered because I realized that this long dead young man whose life was taken too soon never had a chance to initiate his change. He was the helpless victim of overwhelming righteous yet terrible change being thrust upon him. Then, I prayed my wife initiates her own change, as I sat there with my sad brothers - all.