Change.

It's something I think about a lot in my life.  It's something that's constantly happening and constantly affecting us.  Changing knowledge, changing views, changing friends, changing loves, changing times.  One change I've had in the past two weeks was that I learned the difference between affect and effect.

Nothing is constant.  And, personally, I would never want it to be anyway.  I want to be a person who can live his entire life believing one belief stronger than any other belief he believes, but if tomorrow I hear the truth is completely contrary to what I've believed, I want to believe just as strongly in that belief and love it just as much as I loved my old belief, without regret or disconcertion.

One of my current beliefs, and one that I don't see changing for the rest of my life is this (as stated by Ralph Waldo Emerson), "Today speaks what today thinks in hard words, and tomorrow speak what tomorrow thinks in hard words again, though it contradict everything you said today," for it is far greater a sin to never stand up for your beliefs than it is to one day change them.

I don't think a lot of people believe this.  I think a lot of people see change as the greatest human sin, but that's so far from the truth.  A change of beliefs doesn't change who a person is.

Or at least that's what I've always thought.  But then again, I've always wondered, What are we if not our beliefs?  I've always defined a human being as what he or she believes in.  It separates us from animals that cannot feel or believe.  It separates us fundamentally as people, but it leaves so much unexplained.  It serves its purpose as a temporary answer to the question, but it could never hold as a true solution.

One of my beliefs that I'm trying to change is that I need to be the best.  That's not true.  It's strange, almost wretched, how adding three words to a belief can be so hard:  I need to be the best I can be.  The first statement brings me to my best by feeding my ego and believing that I am and can be greater than anyone else, and while that fact is true, anybody can be better than everybody if they try hard enough--that is a fact.  It's not me that is greater than everyone, it is the human potential.  The second statement allows me to accomplish the full human potential without having to compete against anyone else.  I don't need to be better than anyone;  in fact, helping others will help me achieve my own potential.  Not that that would ever motivate me to help people, haha.

Because even though that's not going to change anything on the outside of me, it's going to change who I am.  I don't want to continue with some massive ego, thinking that I'm the greatest person in the world.  I'm not the greatest person in the world.  I am the greatest Lee Rumler in the world, and that's all I need to be.  That's all I want to be.

I want to be me.

And I want me to be happy, which is another change of beliefs that has actually lead me to be pretty stressed lately.  I always thought I'd be happy with my plans of computer engineering, but now I really don't know;  I think I want to be a writer, but I don't want to give up my dreams.

I haven't figured it out yet, but I will.  It'll take some time and maybe some self-discovery, but I'll get there sometime.

Change.

I realized today that I've changed over the years.  I have changed so much.  And every day I love who I become a little more, because that is the nature of change.

Maybe...  maybe who a person is...  isn't who a person is.  It's not how a person looks or what a person says or believes.  A person is who they are becoming.  Constantly.  A person is the person they are constantly changing into.

I revised one of my beliefs today.

I always used to believe I didn't care what anyone thought.  A few years ago, I decided that probably wasn't true, so I changed it to, "I don't care what you think about me," which worked for a time, but it still left me with a somewhat empty feeling.  So about a year or more ago, I changed it to, "I don't care what you think, but I care what you feel."

That still wasn't right.  It left something to be desired, like I wasn't quite saying what I meant to.  Today, I think I finally figured it out, at least, until the next time it changes.

"I care what you think.  Please tell me."

I am invincible.  Words and insults don't hurt me.  But that's not important.  Not for you.  What matters is that I help as many people as need it, and I can only do that by listening.

Change.

How have you changed?

Comment it;  blog about it;  vlog about it;  just think about it -- it doesn't matter.