Wouldn’t it be great if we could just sit down, think really, really hard for a few minutes, and poof, we’re completely changed? We all have things about ourselves we would like to change. And sometimes, in spite of our best sustained efforts, it seems as though we’re not making any progress at all–or backsliding even.
One of the problems with life is that life, no matter how quickly it passes, still moves slowly. Even when we do manage to change, that change can come so slowly we don’t even see it. We just see that we still struggle, likely having forgotten that there may be one thing we no longer struggle with, or at least struggle less with.
Glacial change is still change. And often the change wrought by glaciers are quite significant. Just last week I learned that our favorite canyon for hiking was carved by a glacier. I’ve hiked perhaps a quarter of that canyon. It’s huge! You couldn’t really call it a small change. Slow change? Certainly! But not small by any means. It just might have looked that way when spread out over years, decades, centuries, perhaps even millenia.
I suppose, then, that I need to be patient with myself. The changes I have to undergo to be who I want to be are not small. They’re likely going to take a lot of energy to accomplish, like the energy of a massive chunk of ice scraping out a canyon. That kind of energy, applied all at once, destroys more often than it shapes. So I suppose if given the choice between slow glaciation and quick, catastrophic force, I’ll go with the glacier.
Now there’s a motto for self-motiviation: Go with the Glacier!
Slow thoughtful change is also the one most likely to be the one that we want and most likely to stay.