Relax ... Really ... Just Relax

4 am is a very relaxing time of the day. Asleep or awake I do enjoy 4 am ... if I am not at work. To tell the truth, it makes no difference where I am or what I am doing, I enjoy every second of Mike's life.

The above picture is of the Andes in Colombia near Santa Fe de Antioquia. As you can see it is stunning geography.

Yes I am relaxed.

2012 has been an excellent year. After nine years of positive, personal change life has very much pleasantly surprised me. The positive results of a life well lived are a testament to the success of the character changes. So how did it become possible for these changes to occur? Firstly, the time was right-I was ready for change. Secondly, in order to achieve the goals I had specified, I changed how I viewed the process of change itself.

This is how it worked for me.

I took the time to recall some of the most significant changes that had occured in my life over the years. There were some difficult curves and there were some less difficult curves. This is what I noticed about the curves that life had presented me. The less difficult curves were positive changes, changes that I looked forward to. For example the births of my children. Having kids is a huge, wonderful change. But I had determined before their births that I would always accept them as they are.
Life also presented me some very difficult challenges that could only be resolved by long term  character/psychological change. Bringing about that kind of change was difficult because it required a lot of self-analysis, and that takes time.
Gratefully, regardless of the negativity or positivity, and the time required ... I changed. As the needed changes occured life improve immensely.

Change became a way of life for me. Eventually I came to embrace change. I had come to believe and accept that even in those very difficult, negative situations, there was always some good. There was always a silver lining so to speak. Sometimes it was hard to see the silver lining through the tears, but it was always there.

Now I love change. Good or bad, happy or sad we cannot control what will happen today or tomorrow. However we can control what we will think and do when life gives us changes. In that context we can control it by the choices we make.
Change, with or without pain, is a gift, a lesson and an opportunity for growth and progress.

That is what change really is. It is progress. It is growth. It is starting you at the good place you are already at, and pushing you forward to a better place.

Change is all about taking the lemons that life sometimes gives us and making lemonade out of them.

Change is the reason that I am living here pursuing a passionate life, living every minute, enjoying every second.

I will live here in this small one bedroom apartment until 2014 when we will change our circumstances. That's the other side of the 'change' coin.We have the ability to change if we choose to. So plan your changes whenever possible. Dealing with change is like everything else in life. To be good at it, we need to practice it.

I like the advice in the last line of Desidarata by Max Erlichmann:

"Be careful with life. Strive to be happy.".

2012 was a wonderful year. There were so many good changes.