“There is no evil in things changing, just as there is no good in persisting in a new state.”
MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 4.42
In today’s entry in The Daily Stoic, author Ryan Holiday reminds us that we often say “change is good” because we’re trying to convince ourselves of that fact — because generally we don’t like change. We have to say it’s good to make ourselves believe it.
The truth is, change isn’t good or bad. And lack of change (things staying the same) isn’t good or bad, either. They’re just states of being. As humans, we ascribe positive or negative sentiment to them, but they don’t intrinsically have those values. They’re independent of our judgment upon them.
What’s more, whether things change or not is largely out of our control. We can’t control events — all we can control is our reaction to those events.
We can choose to embrace or fight against change, when it comes. Even better, we can choose to align our will to that of the universe, so that we’re always getting what we wish for. We can even choose to love what fate has in store for us, before it even happens!
And if that change ends up bringing misfortune, then we can welcome that as an opportunity to prove what we’re made of.
