We often notice phases in people’s lives where everyday life feels like a game that has already reached the final level. The outcome of the game no longer matters; what is worth noting and reflecting on is the very fact that the game has ended.
The course of people’s lives
A process of constant growth and change. Many times, the changes that occur seem not to include our personal participation. It looks as if life itself is holding the reins and unfolding its different layers, leading people to new paths.
The issue of change is a controversial one, as it can be characterized in many different ways. At first glance, it is considered necessary and essential in order to promote growth in our lives.
For example:
changing a toxic work environment upgrades a person’s quality of life and contributes to a more positive emotional state.
The meaning of change takes on a negative tone when situations occur in which the person does not hold any control over how they are shaped. Examples that represent this view are matters of chance, such as a death, which forces people into a sudden and compulsory change of course in their life. In this process, people realize that they do not have absolute control over the way their life is formed and are forced to adapt to the new conditions.
Another side of change appears as a result of processes that stem from the acting subject’s own choices in everyday life. People are constantly called to make decisions about their life, and the results of those decisions are the key factors that shape their reality.
Our environment is built by our choices, something that seems to lead life to a different outcome which we only fully recognize in the long run.
Any decision a person makes, even the smallest one, leaves its mark on how their daily life is shaped.
As an example of this, we could mention a group of friends who often meet up and spend quality time together through various activities. Over the years, each of them shapes their personal life separately through their own choices and decisions. We then observe that, at some point, the shared shaping of the group stops existing. This particular process of change did not come about as a result of a decision aimed directly at ending the friendship; on the contrary, it is the natural outcome of how life evolves, leading to the closing of a cycle.
Whether we realize it or not, the way reality is shaped arises from a multitude of factors.
Life is a process of continuous evolution and change, something that anyone can understand by thinking about the passing of time, since the only certainty is that nothing remains exactly as it was. A reasonable question that arises from all this is the following: since change is synonymous with growth, and given that growth is a process that never stops throughout life, how could we take hold of it and determine ourselves the direction that our experiences will take, turning change into a valuable ally?
Numbness has become a plague in the times we live in. The individual is exposed to such a huge volume of information that managing it becomes difficult, and so we observe a weakness when it comes to decision‑making. They could be compared to a rudderless ship, even though they themselves are the captain. The modern way of life has turned us into passive receivers of reality, a situation that is greatly reinforced by social media, as people prefer to watch the lives of others and compare them with their own instead of taking hold of the reins of their life so that they become the leaders they are meant to be.
It is worth noting that, in order to overcome this kind of inertia in the way we live, there must be at least a basic attempt at self‑knowledge, more specifically:
the person needs to receive the stimuli of their environment with as few filters as possible, that is, to have a clear overview and critical thinking, setting aside the beliefs they have developed based on various forms of dogmatism.
By gaining an intersubjective view of reality, we obtain a clear image of every aspect of life that unfolds before us. When we stop judging events based on situations we experienced in the past, we gain the ability to discover new directions and, in this way, broaden our horizons. Expanding on the earlier question, it is essential to emphasize that in order for someone to take into their own hands the way life’s developments unfold, they must be able to judge correctly when it is the right time to apply changes to their lifestyle and daily routine.
How we gain mastery over ourselves
For example, suppose someone is used to eating unhealthily. Over time, they may face health problems and also develop low self‑esteem because of their appearance. From the moment the person realizes that they need to improve their diet and actually starts doing so, they come closer to their own personal progress and self‑mastery. This becomes clear because our actions depend directly on the decisions that we ourselves make about our life. Change can become an ally if we become aware of the power we have in shaping it and stop saying things like “I can’t” when we have not even tried. Another important point that should be stressed concerns the cases in which it seems as if life itself is pushing us to make a change, giving us the impression that we do not possess any power at that moment. In these situations, where we feel that life is making the decisions instead of us, it is wise to understand that something like this happens because we may have allowed circumstances to reach a dead end, relying on a non‑objective view of reality and watching it not evolve, but slowly deteriorate. For this reason, when we realize that we made a wrong decision in the past, it is very important to weigh the positives and negatives of a situation as if on a set of scales. When the scales tilt more toward the negatives, we need to change something in how we think and how we act, because, in any case, all the results—positive or negative—will be experienced by us.
In whatever way it appears, every form of change is proof of the uninterrupted growth taking place in our life. Many times, this is imposed on us by the circumstances around us, and at other times it is the result of our free choices and decisions. In every case, we play a huge role in shaping our life, and with awareness and clear perspective we will be able to make the right decisions for a better everyday life and a more progressive way of living.
For more inspiration on how to take charge of your path and see every stage of life as an opportunity for growth, you can also read our articles Dream, Hope, Take Risks and The Psychosocial Development of People.
Happy Life Team
