we are all changing all the time it is
the very nature of existence so why do
some people seem to be changing more
than others why are some people changing
for the better while others are changing
for the worse and more importantly how
do we take control of the change in our
life and decide where it goes these are
the questions that have plagued me since
I was young
because I remember a time in my life
where I was changing for the worse every
day and I felt like I had no control I
was a teenager and I had started to
become depressed for reasons I didn’t
understand started failing my classes
started smoking cigarettes I quit my
sports teams fought with my friends in
my family and this was particularly
distressing to my mom she would come
into my room every night and ask me
questions like why are you unhappy how
can I help and mostly because I didn’t
know the answer I would just brush her
off and then one night she came in and
she asked me something
she said Charlie what is going to become
of your life and I will never forget
what I said I told her I’m gonna grow up
and be a failure and I cried harder than
I had ever cried that night because when
I said it I believed it I believed that
there was nothing I could do to change
my future my mom disagreed and after
exhausting a long list of options
she made the hard and drastic decision
to send me across the country to a
wilderness rehabilitation center in
rural West Virginia on the Mount on the
side of a mountain in the Appalachian
Mountains
it was a community of similarly
emotionally unstable teenagers and there
was a lot of things I learned there but
there was one thing we did every day
that really stuck with me every morning
we would come together as a community
and we would pick one virtue we were
gonna work on that day today I’m gonna
work on love
today I’m gonna work on forgiveness on
mindfulness on patience and then we
would go about our day as we normally
would and at the end of each day we
would come back together as a community
and we would hold each other accountable
and it went as well as you would expect
a community of emotionally unstable
teenagers to take it you said you were
gonna be mindful today and you ate all
the peanut butter at lunch you said you
were working on forgiveness and you
cursed me out when I knocked your cup
over you said you were gonna work on
love and you told me you hated you today
it’s a little harsh but direct and
honest there was a kid there we’ll call
him Nick no one liked Nick he was
inauthentic insincere he would fly off
the handle and act out in ways just to
draw attention to himself it’s very
off-putting to the other members of the
community and the leaders weren’t blind
to this and in an effort to help Nick
change they sent him back to the
beginning of the program a part called
the wilderness we had all been through
it you basically live under a tarp if it
snows you’re cold if it rains you get
wet it’s the kind of place that teaches
you to appreciate all the things we take
for granted every day
and when they made it back to the
community it was a celebration a
ceremony and part of it was getting
assigned a mentor from the community and
when Nick found out who his mentor was
he flew off the handle and stormed out
of the room and we all knew Nick hadn’t
changed so two weeks later I’m hammering
nails I’m jingling this roof in the
community and it’s the middle of July
it’s hot it’s uncomfortable and I find
myself in this state of enjoyment and
it’s because I’m talking to Nick and
he’s being sincere and humble about
where he is and he seemed like the same
person but I could just tell something
was a little bit different and the
reason that stands out to me so much is
it’s one of those rare moments where you
actually get to see change happen
because the truth about change
you don’t get to see it if you go to the
gym every day you don’t seem any
stronger one day to the next
eating a salads not gonna help you lose
five pounds if you’re trying to save
money to get rich it’s not gonna happen
in a month or a year and that’s what
makes change hard as we never get to see
the gratitude in any single day but it
also introduces this dilemma because we
can’t see change when it’s happening
sometimes we believe we’re changing for
the better when really we’re changing
for the worse I had this cousin we’ll
call him Jay Jay is developing into a
young man he is smart and caring he
loves his family and his friends and if
you were to ask him is there a goal in
your life that you’re working towards
right now he would say yes but if you
look at where he is now
versus where he was six months ago he’s
in a worse place now and if you look a
year ago the change is even more drastic
see the hardest part about change is
acknowledging that we have to do it
admitting to ourselves that the actions
were doing are not gonna lead us to
where we want to go someone asked me the
other day if I never figured out why I
was depressed when I was younger as much
as I would have hate to admit it at the
time all I ever wanted was to make my
parents proud and every time I failed or
I let them down it was easier to say
that it was some fundamental part of me
that I couldn’t change then acknowledge
the mountain of change I was going to
have to overcome to be happy and when we
acknowledge how much we have to do we
get this deep-seated sense of anxiety
like it seems impossible like there’s no
reason to even start because it seems
wasteful and I can’t think of an
organization that approaches this kind
of drastic life change like Alcoholics
Anonymous
to ask someone who compulsively drinks
everyday to stop now and quit until the
day you die seems like an impossible
task so they ask you not to drink for
one day just one day because we can
manage what happens today and day by day
bad habits are broken good habits are
started and habit by habit we become a
little bit richer a little bit healthier
a little bit better so I think each of
us here should pick one bad habit we
have that we want to break or one good
habit that we want to start and when you
go to bed tonight decide that tomorrow
you’re gonna try and when you wake up
tomorrow morning let it be the first
thing you think about look for an
opportunity to sacrifice just a little
bit to accomplish it go to the gym eat a
healthier meal don’t buy something you
otherwise would have find an opportunity
to test your patience and when you go to
bed at night you have to check yourself
there is no community of emotionally
unstable teenagers to call you out you
are truly the only person who can hold
yourself accountable and whether you
achieved your goal or not decide that
you’re gonna try for just one more day
thank you
you
the very nature of existence so why do
some people seem to be changing more
than others why are some people changing
for the better while others are changing
for the worse and more importantly how
do we take control of the change in our
life and decide where it goes these are
the questions that have plagued me since
I was young
because I remember a time in my life
where I was changing for the worse every
day and I felt like I had no control I
was a teenager and I had started to
become depressed for reasons I didn’t
understand started failing my classes
started smoking cigarettes I quit my
sports teams fought with my friends in
my family and this was particularly
distressing to my mom she would come
into my room every night and ask me
questions like why are you unhappy how
can I help and mostly because I didn’t
know the answer I would just brush her
off and then one night she came in and
she asked me something
she said Charlie what is going to become
of your life and I will never forget
what I said I told her I’m gonna grow up
and be a failure and I cried harder than
I had ever cried that night because when
I said it I believed it I believed that
there was nothing I could do to change
my future my mom disagreed and after
exhausting a long list of options
she made the hard and drastic decision
to send me across the country to a
wilderness rehabilitation center in
rural West Virginia on the Mount on the
side of a mountain in the Appalachian
Mountains
it was a community of similarly
emotionally unstable teenagers and there
was a lot of things I learned there but
there was one thing we did every day
that really stuck with me every morning
we would come together as a community
and we would pick one virtue we were
gonna work on that day today I’m gonna
work on love
today I’m gonna work on forgiveness on
mindfulness on patience and then we
would go about our day as we normally
would and at the end of each day we
would come back together as a community
and we would hold each other accountable
and it went as well as you would expect
a community of emotionally unstable
teenagers to take it you said you were
gonna be mindful today and you ate all
the peanut butter at lunch you said you
were working on forgiveness and you
cursed me out when I knocked your cup
over you said you were gonna work on
love and you told me you hated you today
it’s a little harsh but direct and
honest there was a kid there we’ll call
him Nick no one liked Nick he was
inauthentic insincere he would fly off
the handle and act out in ways just to
draw attention to himself it’s very
off-putting to the other members of the
community and the leaders weren’t blind
to this and in an effort to help Nick
change they sent him back to the
beginning of the program a part called
the wilderness we had all been through
it you basically live under a tarp if it
snows you’re cold if it rains you get
wet it’s the kind of place that teaches
you to appreciate all the things we take
for granted every day
and when they made it back to the
community it was a celebration a
ceremony and part of it was getting
assigned a mentor from the community and
when Nick found out who his mentor was
he flew off the handle and stormed out
of the room and we all knew Nick hadn’t
changed so two weeks later I’m hammering
nails I’m jingling this roof in the
community and it’s the middle of July
it’s hot it’s uncomfortable and I find
myself in this state of enjoyment and
it’s because I’m talking to Nick and
he’s being sincere and humble about
where he is and he seemed like the same
person but I could just tell something
was a little bit different and the
reason that stands out to me so much is
it’s one of those rare moments where you
actually get to see change happen
because the truth about change
you don’t get to see it if you go to the
gym every day you don’t seem any
stronger one day to the next
eating a salads not gonna help you lose
five pounds if you’re trying to save
money to get rich it’s not gonna happen
in a month or a year and that’s what
makes change hard as we never get to see
the gratitude in any single day but it
also introduces this dilemma because we
can’t see change when it’s happening
sometimes we believe we’re changing for
the better when really we’re changing
for the worse I had this cousin we’ll
call him Jay Jay is developing into a
young man he is smart and caring he
loves his family and his friends and if
you were to ask him is there a goal in
your life that you’re working towards
right now he would say yes but if you
look at where he is now
versus where he was six months ago he’s
in a worse place now and if you look a
year ago the change is even more drastic
see the hardest part about change is
acknowledging that we have to do it
admitting to ourselves that the actions
were doing are not gonna lead us to
where we want to go someone asked me the
other day if I never figured out why I
was depressed when I was younger as much
as I would have hate to admit it at the
time all I ever wanted was to make my
parents proud and every time I failed or
I let them down it was easier to say
that it was some fundamental part of me
that I couldn’t change then acknowledge
the mountain of change I was going to
have to overcome to be happy and when we
acknowledge how much we have to do we
get this deep-seated sense of anxiety
like it seems impossible like there’s no
reason to even start because it seems
wasteful and I can’t think of an
organization that approaches this kind
of drastic life change like Alcoholics
Anonymous
to ask someone who compulsively drinks
everyday to stop now and quit until the
day you die seems like an impossible
task so they ask you not to drink for
one day just one day because we can
manage what happens today and day by day
bad habits are broken good habits are
started and habit by habit we become a
little bit richer a little bit healthier
a little bit better so I think each of
us here should pick one bad habit we
have that we want to break or one good
habit that we want to start and when you
go to bed tonight decide that tomorrow
you’re gonna try and when you wake up
tomorrow morning let it be the first
thing you think about look for an
opportunity to sacrifice just a little
bit to accomplish it go to the gym eat a
healthier meal don’t buy something you
otherwise would have find an opportunity
to test your patience and when you go to
bed at night you have to check yourself
there is no community of emotionally
unstable teenagers to call you out you
are truly the only person who can hold
yourself accountable and whether you
achieved your goal or not decide that
you’re gonna try for just one more day
thank you
you
Please follow and like us: