Change Where You Bang Your Head

"Above all, avoid banging your head against the same piece of wall.  The wall will not get any softer." - Felix Dennis

There comes a moment - really a series of moments I suppose -when the realization comes that a certain thing is simply not going to change.  You may hope it will change.  You may think the requirement for change is patently obvious, not just to you but to everyone around you.  You may even think that the readily viewable consequences of this thing are so visible that to continue forward is this way is a retrograde action similar to driving over a bridge that is obviously half finished.

And still, nothing changes.

It is what you do at that moment that is important.

Why is it important?  Because in fact the thing that needs changing is within you.

Whatever this thing that you cannot change is, it is not changing because it is (obviously) out of your control - if it were, you would have a more direct ability to change it.  Why it is out of you control is relatively unimportant:  perhaps it is because a decision must be made by someone who does not want to make them or perhaps someone else's pride and prestige are involved or perhaps the power of inertia is simply more powerful than the need to resolve it.  In any case the "why" might make for an interesting theory over coffee but will not change anything.

And a change is the key.  The wall, as Mr. Dennis points out above, will not become any softer by you hammering it with your head.  And the wall will not move.  You are the one that needs to change your position.

This realization is a large step - but an important.   It takes the focus off of the wall (which had no intention of relocating) and puts it squarely on you (the one who is capable of moving away).  It grants you the power of decision, of intiation.  Rather than waiting for the wall to change you can turn your efforts to finding what else you can change, what is actually in your control.

A word of warning:  when making this discovery do not suddenly become depressed by the fact that changes you are able to make do not seem to immeidately address the wall.  Often the initial changes that we can make are small in comparison to the wall we have been hitting our head against.  But small changes properly executed can lead to bigger changes and bigger changes to real revolutions.

And who knows -the changes you can make and do make may actually allow to rent the bulldozer to drive over and through the wall where you used to hit your head.