“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy, not on fighting the old, but on building the new.” - Socrates
It is no secret that time waits for no one. Our world is ever changing, as it should be. After all, change is necessary for growth and progress. Unfortunately, life holds no rewind button for those of us who miss out on important changes, even if they have a direct effect on our lives. This is why the secret to dealing with change, as Socrates says, is to focus on “building the new” rather than lingering in the past, feeling sorry for ourselves. Change is an inevitable constant, and even the changes we fail to witness are changes we may have to accept in order to move on with our lives.
It is easy for people, you and I included,…show more content… To discover so suddenly that all of your expectations were false is devastating. Not only that, but to know, deep down, that you have no way of changing them? Having so little control over such important elements of your life would be terrifying, because being in control is comfortable. Having a say in all elements of your life and being able to anticipate change and use it to your advantage is ideal. It is also, however, a luxury, for we all know that we do not always have a say in the changes that take place in our lives. When Kamau discovers all that is different around him, it frightens, frustrates and devastates him. Not knowing how to react or cope, he “hurries away, bitter and blind.” This point in the story makes him very relatable to us, the readers, as we all know that escape can often seem like the only solution. There is also mention of how he hurries away, which is “bitter and blind”. The word bitter appears on several different occasions throughout this story, as it ties together many of the emotions Kamau is feeling, such as anger, loss and abandonment, all in one, powerful. Missing out on important events in our lives can leave us feeling bitterness and resentment towards, well, everything around us. Anyone who has had their expectations proven false can vouch for Kamau’s feelings of heartbreak. Even those of us who haven't can imagine how horrible it must feel. It’s scary to think that so…show more content… Just like all the problems we face in our lives; no matter how far or how fast we run from them, sooner or later they will catch up to us, and when they do, we must face them in order to move on with our lives. Upon realizing this, Kamau does what we all must to do when we feel cheated or left behind, he stops and reflects. He thinks about the “hero’s welcome” that he was hoping for throughout his long walk home, and about the abrupt, brick-wall-of-a-welcome he received in it’s place. He goes over the events of the past few hours in his head, searching for the root of his pain. In doing so, he realizes that it wasn’t realistic or fair of him to assume that nothing would change in his absence; that all the changes he now knows would have “waited for his return”. Life goes on, and if we miss something, there is no going back in time. We do not have the power to change the past, so we should instead focus our efforts into accepting it, learning from it, and using it to build ourselves a future. Without coming to this realization, we can grow to fear change, and to fear change, is to fear moving forward. It is okay to be afraid of missing something important, I think we all fear that to a certain extent, but the fear of change should never stop you from living your life. This is why it is important to accept change, despite how
