Yesterday, I was asked in a comment if I could post about how to change quickly. I gave this a lot of thought and I believe my recent wrist injury makes a nice example for a process of changing a life.

   Last week I broke the head of my radius and now I have this nice, blue cast. It is certainly a new challenge that life has given me, but it could just as easily have been brought on by my own misconceptions or false beliefs. For example, the idea that a step down from a stage would be secure and not be allowed to roll forward when stepped upon.

   When we start to desire a change in our lives the first step is to have an idea of what we want, in this case a normally functioning arm. I’ve followed that with ice packing  the wound, taking anti-swelling medication, consulting experts (doctors) and following their advice by allowing them to treat me. Next, I can follow their finger exercises and precautions, research more, expect healing and pray. But, and this is the important part, barring a miracle or any further complications this goal will take about 4-6 weeks to heal and more to restrengthen and become as good as ever. Now, this obviously isn’t the most important task in my life, but let’s imagine it is: 4-6 weeks. Let’s say it’s everyone’s most important task: 4-6 weeks. Alright, maybe a day or so saved for some amount of human ingenuity that I can’t anticipate.

   Now, if I’m basically correct in all this how should I feel about it? I could be mad that life or my mistake has put this on me, I could fear the future and the strong possibility of further injury if I continue to live a full life. But to be fair and at the same time continue to work on effectiveness, I would recommend acceptance and gratitude for every day that my arm helped me, for having a better arm, and for the amazing healing time of the human body.

   We can make huge changes in ourselves, our destiny, but the quick change is the heading, not getting the eventual result. To be strong we have to strengthen (over time). To lose weight we have to approach a healthy weight through great eating and great exercise (over time). To become rich there are many paths most of which that maintain our other standards take time.

   I don’t want to discourage people from looking for shortcuts in life. Looking is certainly the only way you can find. But at some point there are costs to our desires and often that cost includes an amount of time. I want to challenge you to determine your goals, become more able to achieve them, see your problems for what they are and reach your goals. One last problem with time is that at the end of that process it all starts over again. If you race to the finish line you also race to the start.

   Thanks for the suggestion, I hope this is helpful and if you do manage to come up for an effective solution to time let me know, I occasionally get itches under this thing.