Resistance is Futile

When we end up at a point in our lives where we have decided that we need to make a change, it is often not merely on whim but rather out of necessity.  The pain is so great that we cannot bare another moment of feeling this way.  We have to do something.

What happens next is the reason it is so tough to quit smoking, stay on a diet, or actually turn over any new leaf, because we resist all change by trying to continue to do the same thing we have been doing, even in the face of tremendous pain and increasing odds of loss and even fatality.  This is why people get scared to death, and they will even say, "I am afraid I will never change."

The first phase of the operation, the psychic surgery that we must perform on ourselves in order to cure ourselves of our addictions to certain failing thought forms, is to recognize the issue, and our resistance to change in relationship to that issue.  We want to be able to eat anything and look slim and healthy.  We have a distorted view of the goal, and the path we have carved out for ourselves in relationship to it is irrational and untenable.  In short, you can't get there from here going the way you are going.

No, we must have a clean and transparent view of the real problem.  The real issue is in fact our resistance to change.  Life shows us every door, and we drag our feet and put on that willful face and discount every assistance and avoid every sign, until finally we do get to the point where we have to say, "It's too late now, I might as well continue since it is going to kill me anyways."  This is the classic excuse.  "It's too late for me.  I've committed the unpardonable sin.  I am so far down the road that I am unrecoverable."

Since we cannot imagine its being any other way, we then go on, resolved to live the miserable life of lying to ourselves about what it is that we are doing to ourselves.  There is never enough time. No one cares enough. No one is really listening.  I just don't have the strength or will power.

It is usually at this point that we start substituting one arrangement of the chairs on the Titanic after another.  We seek mystical, musical, pharmaceutical, sensual, athletic, cerebral, religious, military, sociopolitical, economic, and tons of other answers. If only we had this or that or could catch a break or could just have it work in our favor one time, we would be able to let go.  This is my last shot of heroin, I promise.  I'm going to quit this summer.  I'll start over on my birthday.  I will never do that again.

This is why people will eat anyway they want until they have a heart attack.  All of a sudden, it becomes abundantly clear that all of that hoopla about healthy eating may not be the worst possible thing, and eating wood chips and sea weed sandwiches is not off the menu anymore.  It's a fire sale of old habits, because anything is preferable to death.

It usually takes something on the level of a heart attack to get us to really take seriously the need to let go.  But eventually, the notion hits us that what we are doing is not healthy on several levels and we need to make a change.  So, this is the beginning spot.  We come to the corner of Change or Die.

Resistance is our enemy, and we are the ones who are doing the resisting. This makes us our own worst enemy.  This is inevitable.  We always come to blows with ourselves over those bastions of selfishness.  We just want it the way we want it, and nature has us needing a more balanced life.  We want it one-sided, lopsided, leaning too hard, pushed over in our favor, and to totally own it all, but we cannot actually fit it all inside. Our arms are not wide enough.  Our eyes are way bigger than our tummies. Our uterus is not big enough to take care of all the children of the world, and we have to allow that others need to help.  That which we seek to own eventually owns us.

In some circles, the idea that we can save the world all on our own is called a
"Christ Complex."  The belief that we are our own messiah is very common; we do not believe that we need others to help us, because we can do it all on our own.  This is resistance rationalized all the way to the mountain top.  "I will show them!"

And what is it that we are attempting to display, show, impress, reveal?  That we can do it.  At this point, flat on your back with an EKG pumping out bad numbers, the thought that we have the world by the tail is beyond ridiculous.  It is ironic that where we come up with this resolve is usually from behind bars, under a blanket, in a closet, or out on the streets.  Why does it take absolute desperation to give us the strength to finally commit to doing what we knew we needed to do years ago?  We never knew how important it was, until we faced death.  Oh, the irony of the thought that so many really big answers and creative ideas come to us while we are seated on the toilet.

What it takes then is seeing the irrationality in our own resistance to change, understanding the need from the beginning, and then implementing the needed changes on the fly.  MacGyver does it.  Good quarterbacks do it.  Comedians facing hecklers do it.  Mothers who deal successfully with children every day do it.  In fact, anyone who has to make decisions in motion and create workable paths of access and mobility has to think on his feet and change on a dime.  There is still time if you will only step off the rail road tracks before the moment of impact, so it is almost never too late to change.

The reward for doing so is that you can lower your frustration and pain.  We have been so busy trying to avoid, "I told you so," that we remained addicted until the embarrassment of being wrong finally was overcome by the pain of hanging on.  This is when we finally say, "I wish had known about this years ago."  The irony is that we are inwardly thinking, "I wish I had done this from the beginning."  But that is another story.

runningturtle87