Change isn’t coming, it is happening. That is not me trying to be a fancy philosopher. Don’t call be Descartes because I don’t need to burn myself with wax to know that I am alive or to say snappy things like “I think, therefore I am.”
I am just an everyday Joe who has learned a little bit from the life I have led. Around these parts folks call it all sorts of things that make it sound really important but not me. I aim for the simple term I use called “Life experience.”
My ability to simplify things is what enabled me to become a mighty dad blogger who earns millions of dollars from blogging or maybe not. I’ll let you decide if I am mighty or earning millions from blogging.
While you think about I want to move on to talking about before and after photos. I have been thinking about them quite a bit lately. That is because there are some pretty big changes coming up on the horizon. None of them are guaranteed to happen but that doesn’t mean they won’t or that they will.
If you haven’t figured it out yet my mind works at about a million miles a minute which means that it is not unusual to find me thinking about things like changes and wondering what they will be like and that is what brings me to the before and after pictures I mentioned before.
The picture just below this paragraph is from the kitchen in my old house. I call it the “old kitchen” but in truth it is what the kitchen looked like after we remodeled it. I loved that kitchen and I miss it. It wasn’t easy to give up.
And now here is what the kitchen looked like before we gutted it and redid it. It was a mess and falling apart. There are no words for how happy it made us to change it or how much more useful it became afterwards.
When big changes come I often wish to be able to see the “after” picture so that I know things will be better. I already know what the before looks like.
But sometimes I have to remind myself that change is taking place daily even when we don’t think about it and it doesn’t have to be a bad thing. I suppose you can attribute all this as part of an effort to control what cannot be controlled.
I talk to my children about managing life as opposed to controlling it because it is much easier to manage things than to control them. That is not the most profound or insightful advice but it is among the most practical I have to offer.
And now that I look at the “before” picture again it reminds me that I need to get rid of more stuff because I don’t really need as much as I have. That is another benefit of moving, it encourages you to pare down your belongings and focus on the things that really matter.
What do you think?
I used to always be afraid of what something would look like “on the other side.” I don’t mean remodeling or a new hair color, although those sometimes keep me up at night. The bigger, more meaningful changes in life cause me to freeze with fear of not knowing what the end result might be, even if that result would more than likely be better than what is. I, too, have had a bit of life experience. It comes with living a lot and effing up more times than not. Knowing that things eventually turn out for the best has made me less and less apprehensive of change. I’m not completely comfortable with change, but at least I’m not frozen in fear any more.
 @SugarJones13 Life experience makes such a significant difference. When you have been around long enough to see a few things and live a little you start to learn how to relax.
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It is not always easy because those big changes are scary. When they come they sometimes still hit me pretty hard. I try to remind myself of what Mark Twain said, Â “Courage is resistance to fear, mastery of fear, not absence of fear.”
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That makes so much sense to me because it is practical. So is effing up, sometimes it can be really painful but if you learn something useful from it…
I also like to take pictures of before and after. It helps me see the changes in a different perspective. And that’s why I took pictures of my garden before I added the greenhouse, and the greenhouse before the plants etc…
I also love getting rid of stuff. And, I’m trying my best not to by new stuff 🙂
 @Jens The before and after pictures make a huge difference. I like seeing the changes and hopefully the progress.
Manage over control is a GREAT mantra and goal.Â
 @NinaBadzin Thank you. I tend to see it as being quite practical and something that we can implement immediately.