Change Does Us Good
Broto Darma, The Jakarta Post - WEEKENDER | Wed, 04/22/2009 7:03 PM |
Change has been the buzzword for more than a year now, with seemingly everybody jumping on the Obama bandwagon until it has become cliched, even hollow. Everybody is doing it, or at least saying they are.
But real change on a personal level doesn’t happen so easily. We say we are going to clean up our acts, turn over a new leaf or become a better person, but it’s often the case that we end up pulling the wool over the eyes of those around us and, of course, ourselves because we are too lazy or complacent to do what is needed.
It often takes that proverbial curve ball that life throws our way, the detour in our well-planned road, God’s smackdown of our arrogance, to change our ways.
“Friends say to me all the time, ‘you’re a different person now’,” says “Selma”, a 30-something woman who works in the entertainment business and also runs her own company.
She says fame went to her head when she started making her name in showbiz. Then, when everything seemed to be going her way, her business partner left and she had to start over from scratch. She also started to reconsider her I’ll-party-like-there’s-no-tomorrow mantra after a visit to a Chinese herbalist revealed her liver was quaking from the onslaught.
“I don’t want to do it anymore. I’ll go out but I’ll think that I’d better be home,” she says over coffee.
She mentions a mutual friend, “Jackie”, who was once the most feared fashion writer in town with scathing reviews that left designers quaking in their knee-high boots. He ruthlessly sized up ersatz creations and ripped them to shreds.
I chuckled as I remembered our friend recounting to me one of his mean moments. A designer wannabe had come by his office to show him her designs. Jackie swept in, cast a critical eye over the collection and declared they were all rip-offs of a famous design duo. Triumphant at deflating another ego, he turned on his heel and left.
A serious health crisis changed that need to build himself up by tearing others down and humbled him. He has put away his poison pen and his aspirations to be the local version of Anna Wintour. Life’s difficulties have softened his heart (although he still has his moments).
I know for myself how hard it is to make meaningful change. For many years, angry, even embittered by the hand life had dealt me, I was a screaming raw nerve, a hissy fit waiting to happen, someone who took umbrage whenever the opportunity presented itself. I was the golden-haired one with a very black core.
I summarily rejected good people in my life but clung desperately to those who were as needy as me, bound by shared insecurities, marching through life with a supercillious attitude and a quiver of withering asides as my shield. When overwhelmed by my feelings, I would take it out on an unfortunate taxi driver or service person for whatever wrong, real or imagined, that I felt by unleashing a harrowing harangue.
“You’re scary when you’re angry,” a friend said to me out of concern. “Perhaps you should try to think of the feelings of that person instead of just how you feel.”
At the time, far too wrapped up in myself, I really couldn’t. I operated by my own rules and regulations, an equal opportunity abuser torn up inside. It was payback time, and you had all better beware.
It wasn’t until I heard a definition of what hell on earth is that my perspective changed.
“When you get angry at someone, that person takes it home with them, to their wife or husband and their children, and takes out their frustration on them, so everything you have done is compounded.”
I felt the twinge of karma – and calmness – calling.
I knew the truth of the person’s words but, of course, nobody can tell us what to do, or lead us to that change without us wanting to do it ourselves (and I still bristle at those people who believe they know exactly what is right for everyone else). I had to begin my journey by myself, in my own good time.
My inner anger had shown up in other ways, especially my obesity. Part of my change began with trying to change my eating habits and exercising, which also gave me a feeling of control over my life. I realized that I had a lot to be thankful for – whatever had happened in the past, my life really was not so bad after all – and I needed to focus on the positive. Instead of only thinking about myself, I looked around me at those struggling to get by.
I started paring negative influences from my life, whether it was the box of chocolate chip cookies that I pretended I would eat one at a time (yeah, in the space of an hour) or energy-sapping friends.
The physical downsizing came amid the larger transformation of who I am, of letting go of the arrogance of wallowing in my own feelings to be more human and humane toward those around me. I count my blessings today, at the very least that I am lucky to be the person who is being served, not the one serving, and I know there are always others much worse off than me.
There also was a recent wake-up call. I suffered an injury, nothing life threatening but something that came with getting older and working to get in shape. The injury required surgery, which once again brought home to me how fortunate I am. After my operation, as I waited to be returned to my room, the next patient was wheeled into surgery: A 10-year-old girl who was having cranial surgery.
Change doesn’t happen overnight, and it often needs a jolt to alert us to the error of our ways. Like a recovering addict, I still slip and slide, striving to tame the rage inside, taking one day at a time to be a better person. There is one thing about the cliched expressions of change dominating the airwaves and ad blurbs: Change really does have to start with number one. Hakika Murni
But real change on a personal level doesn’t happen so easily. We say we are going to clean up our acts, turn over a new leaf or become a better person, but it’s often the case that we end up pulling the wool over the eyes of those around us and, of course, ourselves because we are too lazy or complacent to do what is needed.
It often takes that proverbial curve ball that life throws our way, the detour in our well-planned road, God’s smackdown of our arrogance, to change our ways.
“Friends say to me all the time, ‘you’re a different person now’,” says “Selma”, a 30-something woman who works in the entertainment business and also runs her own company.
She says fame went to her head when she started making her name in showbiz. Then, when everything seemed to be going her way, her business partner left and she had to start over from scratch. She also started to reconsider her I’ll-party-like-there’s-no-tomorrow mantra after a visit to a Chinese herbalist revealed her liver was quaking from the onslaught.
“I don’t want to do it anymore. I’ll go out but I’ll think that I’d better be home,” she says over coffee.
She mentions a mutual friend, “Jackie”, who was once the most feared fashion writer in town with scathing reviews that left designers quaking in their knee-high boots. He ruthlessly sized up ersatz creations and ripped them to shreds.
I chuckled as I remembered our friend recounting to me one of his mean moments. A designer wannabe had come by his office to show him her designs. Jackie swept in, cast a critical eye over the collection and declared they were all rip-offs of a famous design duo. Triumphant at deflating another ego, he turned on his heel and left.
A serious health crisis changed that need to build himself up by tearing others down and humbled him. He has put away his poison pen and his aspirations to be the local version of Anna Wintour. Life’s difficulties have softened his heart (although he still has his moments).
I know for myself how hard it is to make meaningful change. For many years, angry, even embittered by the hand life had dealt me, I was a screaming raw nerve, a hissy fit waiting to happen, someone who took umbrage whenever the opportunity presented itself. I was the golden-haired one with a very black core.
I summarily rejected good people in my life but clung desperately to those who were as needy as me, bound by shared insecurities, marching through life with a supercillious attitude and a quiver of withering asides as my shield. When overwhelmed by my feelings, I would take it out on an unfortunate taxi driver or service person for whatever wrong, real or imagined, that I felt by unleashing a harrowing harangue.
“You’re scary when you’re angry,” a friend said to me out of concern. “Perhaps you should try to think of the feelings of that person instead of just how you feel.”
At the time, far too wrapped up in myself, I really couldn’t. I operated by my own rules and regulations, an equal opportunity abuser torn up inside. It was payback time, and you had all better beware.
It wasn’t until I heard a definition of what hell on earth is that my perspective changed.
“When you get angry at someone, that person takes it home with them, to their wife or husband and their children, and takes out their frustration on them, so everything you have done is compounded.”
I felt the twinge of karma – and calmness – calling.
I knew the truth of the person’s words but, of course, nobody can tell us what to do, or lead us to that change without us wanting to do it ourselves (and I still bristle at those people who believe they know exactly what is right for everyone else). I had to begin my journey by myself, in my own good time.
My inner anger had shown up in other ways, especially my obesity. Part of my change began with trying to change my eating habits and exercising, which also gave me a feeling of control over my life. I realized that I had a lot to be thankful for – whatever had happened in the past, my life really was not so bad after all – and I needed to focus on the positive. Instead of only thinking about myself, I looked around me at those struggling to get by.
I started paring negative influences from my life, whether it was the box of chocolate chip cookies that I pretended I would eat one at a time (yeah, in the space of an hour) or energy-sapping friends.
The physical downsizing came amid the larger transformation of who I am, of letting go of the arrogance of wallowing in my own feelings to be more human and humane toward those around me. I count my blessings today, at the very least that I am lucky to be the person who is being served, not the one serving, and I know there are always others much worse off than me.
There also was a recent wake-up call. I suffered an injury, nothing life threatening but something that came with getting older and working to get in shape. The injury required surgery, which once again brought home to me how fortunate I am. After my operation, as I waited to be returned to my room, the next patient was wheeled into surgery: A 10-year-old girl who was having cranial surgery.
Change doesn’t happen overnight, and it often needs a jolt to alert us to the error of our ways. Like a recovering addict, I still slip and slide, striving to tame the rage inside, taking one day at a time to be a better person. There is one thing about the cliched expressions of change dominating the airwaves and ad blurbs: Change really does have to start with number one. Hakika Murni
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