There's a lot of murmuring going on about the word 'change.'
It's sexy of late, especially to a younger, digitized audience. I can change channels, profile pics, radio stations, iPod tunes – nearly anything I want at the click of something.
And so, I can get jaded or dissatisfied when life bogs me down with the real process of change. Things in the real world take real time. Political processes, approval process and biological processes all take time. I then very easily get jaded or dissatisfied with the word 'process' because it signals a lengthy amount of time or even a perceived delay.
But it doesn't mean I'm any less hungry for change. It doesn't mean I don't dream of a better tomorrow any less frequently. Indeed, my hunger for change may only increase due to my belief that change can happen (after all, I change things everyday, remember?). Adding to my witness that change can happen is a hickory-like belief that change should happen. Put these together and I'm resolutely preaching that change must happen.
The trick will be to see who wants to involve me in their change process. Who wants to be Gandhi to me, whispering as I walk that I must be the change I wish to see?
After all, being is process. Identity, like character, isn't easily forged in the actions of an hour, but rather in the commitments of a lifetime. Thus, to be the change I wish to see is much different that doing the change I wish to see.
In fact, I may only succeed at becoming the change I wish to see. Because being is arrival. The circle is complete. The state of being signals accomplishment, like finally landing some sort of job, reputation or social circle. I am something or somewhere.
But the deep discipline of becoming is forged in my daily choices that soon become lifelong habits. How I drink coffee, then, says as much about the change I wish to see as adding a Facebook cause, writing a year-end check, or casting a single vote does.
Being engaged in the process of becoming the change is the journey of a lifetime. Success is not measured in broad swaths of numerical data, but in the depth of stories that emerge from trek that is a life well lived.
So get ready for change. It's gonna take a while.