Change is not just for parking meters

This past weekend I had some new windows installed in my home. This may not seem momentous at first glance, but for me it was. For the last three years, my bedroom has had single-pane windows which allowed heat to escape in copious amounts in the winter, during the summer they allowed heat to enter, and year-round they enabled my wife and I to hear each and every dog in our neighborhood express their disappointment (or excitement) at being left outside. Now, finally, we can sleep a full night (or in my case - day) without being woken up by the garbageman coming past our house, or the neighbor's kid's band practicing. As pleased as these revelations make me feel, I can't help but think that over three years ago, I never would have been excited to have new windows. A new video game, sure, but new windows? Never.


My windows were not quite this bad, but almost.

I figure I'm so happy about these new windows because my priorities in life have shifted. I no longer get excited about new video games, but I am excited about new windows. Priorities in our lives constantly change and are modified by our situations and where we are in life. Four years ago, I played video games in my free time so they were important to me. Now, I am a homeowner attending school full-time while working full-time and I no longer have time for video games. New windows, however, I can now fully appreciate, and I do.

This revelation has made me realize that changing, or more specifically - accepting of change within my life, is one of the steps on the road to being a "grown-up". Having our desires/wants/and needs all come into alignment (more or less) is a real sign of maturation as a person. Sure, everyone's likes and dislikes modify and morph over time. But moving from liking chicken nuggets to liking a Bic Mac is totally different from shifting deriving happiness from video games to deriving happiness from new windows.

Things we were indifferent to, such as what sort of windows are in the room where we sleep, are suddenly important. At the same time, things that were urgently important to us, such as seeing all the new blockbusters in the movie theater, fall by the wayside.

Time moves on - the world changes, and as we go through life and this world, items of import to our lives also change. We change as we get older - we are no longer the same person as when we started this journey. As a result, things important to us also change.

I am no longer the same person who married my wife fifteen years ago. Back then I was madly in love with her, had just gotten a job at a fast-food restaurant, had no plans of going back to school, we were renting an apartment and back then all this was good enough for me. Flash forward to today: I am working at an IT security firm gaining valuable experience while I complete my college degrees. I am also now a home owner who is still madly in love with his wife. I am an almost completely different person from who my wife married.

But in a way, we all are different people from who we were fifteen, ten, or even five years ago. We are all doppelgangers of sorts. A totally different person, yet somehow the same, from who we once were in the past. Priorities shift. New jobs. Re-locations and moving. New friends and family members enter our lives. Others leave.

We all change all the time. How we deal with it reflects on how strong we are as a person. Some must be pulled kicking and screaming, while some never are able to make the leap at all and live in the past. Most are able to adapt after a fashion, however, and learn to cope with change in their lives. The good ones are the ones who never notice it, but are able to accept it on a subconscious level. Strong people are able to direct their own lives through change. The exceptional ones are those lucky few who can bring change to the world through the power of their dreams.


Visionary.

I am looking forward to a future full of change. I never envisioned having a college degree, yet here I am - a year and eight months away from completing TWO degrees. I never thought I would be able to afford a home, yet here I am a full fledged home-mortgage payer of three years. It is amazing what can happen in your life when you are able to focus on what you need to change in your life to improve it, and enact that change.

Growing up, my mom said I was always a daydreamer with my head in the clouds. I like to think I still have my head in the clouds, but now it is looking forward to a better future. One that I can bring about myself.

Yes, everything changes. Even me. The future is looking real bright through these new windows I have.