The Life We Leaf

The changing of the seasons always makes me take a step back and think about the meaning of change in general. The leaves on the trees don't just decide one day that they want to be a different color. They turn into hues of reds and oranges because they adapt to the colder environment. They no longer need to produce ingredients that help them grow. Much in the same, we make changes because we are thrown into situations of everyday life. We wear warmer clothes because the temperature drops. We turn off the air conditioning because we can be comfortable with the windows open. But unlike leaves, we also have the ability to change when we want to. Because we can make decisions whether they are smart choices or not our finest moments. And then comes the caveat - we must learn to deal with the aftermath of the decisions we make that could alter the rest of our futures. It's kind of scary to think about how much power we can hold from making a choice. How a mere action or thought can steer us into one direction or another. Change can be good, but can it also be bad?

We can take the word "change" and spin it into almost any shape or form. We often hear "change is good." But what about when it wasn't our choice? What if it was the only way and you had to just accept it and continue to live your life? There are things in my life that I will never seem to understand. Things that I cannot control. Things that maybe I wasn't directly related to, but rippled it's way into my life and has affected me and my course. We all experience impacts like this, and I know I am not alone. Part of it makes me angry because I wish I could control the things that alter my life. I guess that's why they call it life - it's our general, random, principle of existence. We live and we learn. We exist and then we're gone. I don't mean to sound morbid, but the speck of our existence is a microscopic dot that falls into a short time-span of the world and all its history.

You see how my mind starts to wander from just the thought of change? Such a concept can snowball into something much larger than us. But what about the things we can control? And that we can change? The good kind of change? The things that make every day worthwhile? What would be the point of living if we couldn't control our existence? Questions could continue to spiral on and on. But at least I know I have the power and the right to make things happen in my own life. And hopefully those decisions don't negatively affect someone else. It's just my way of adapting to change. The best and worst. What I can decide and what I must adjust to. After all, we all seem to be leaves on a bigger tree. We just happen to have two ways of making things happen.