What is Your X?

"It's funny how x can change everything" - Drake

I changed.

At first I was quick to say I didn't but then I realized that change is a necessary part of life. I cannot make anything happen or keep anything from happening in my life. I am merely a piece in God's game of chess. He is not even the king in the game but more realistically, He is the one moving the pieces. Each situation I enter is because He has allowed me to move in that direction in order for me to get to another position on the board of life. While in each square he places me in, be it the positive black squares or the negative white ones, I go through some degree of growth, based on the amount of opposition I face while in that square. But, at the end of the day, I come out of each square, and, even if I take a step back, I am strategically moving forward.

I can't choose the level of change I go through. If I could, why would I not just remain static and ignorant? The more wisdom one obtains, the more sadness he will ultimately feel in life. But in the end it helps because he will be able to make better decisions that will increase his happiness, productivity, and other key aspects of life.

The worst part of change is that, in order to gain one thing, something else must be lost. Loss alone is never positive but change, loss, and gain are a package that can only be bought in a bundle. There will always be a level of challenge that you are faced with as you change but as long as the good outweighs the bad and the person/entity in question moves onward and upward, he cannot truly be faulted.

To take steps toward change is sometimes selfish but change is often gradual and goes unnoticed, thus giving surrounding parties a chance to adapt. The process which served as the catalyst for the most visible change in my adult life, however, was not gradual. It was drastic and intense. It did not give me nor those around me a chane to get a grip on it, but instead, I came out with a walk that said "This is who I have grown to be. I am refined and I am focused. Take it or leave it." I will not claim that it was fair but it was nothing short of real.

“I cannot change the past. I cannot change the fact that people will act in a certain way. The only thing I can do is play on the one string that I have. I am convinced that life is 10% what happens to me and 90% how I react to it.” I embraced this lesson during my most drastic period of growth and now I realize that I am in charge of my attitude. The transformation has occurred. It cannot be reversed, only refined. The question at hand now is, in the words of Bro. Kwame Akeem Carrol, "How you gonna act?"

Litera scripta manet. - Unknown