Embracing Change

In 2008, I wrote a series of articles for The Straits Times on the subject of Change. I've reprinted the third part below since it may be of interest to those who have read my 17th Feb 2011 Straits Times column on a related subject.

Embracing Change

In my previous two columns, I argued that change is a fundamental feature of our nature as human beings. There does not seem to be any part of us, either physically or mentally, that remains constant throughout our lifetimes.

Personally, I find this notion very liberating. It suggests that my character is not set in stone, but that I can exercise control over the kind of person I am, and the kind of person I become.

Embracing change

The Greek philosopher Heraclitus (see part 1 of this series) said, “Nothing is; everything is becoming.” It pleases me to think that this is as true of human persons as it is of every other object in the universe. We are constantly changing and developing; continually becoming.

Perhaps I can illustrate this using an example from my own life. In recent years, I have come to realise that I am a very self-absorbed person. By this, I mean that I spend far too much time thinking about myself and promoting my own welfare, and far too little time thinking about others and promoting their welfare.

Fortunately, self-absorption is not - or, at least, need not - be a permanent feature of my character. It is not as though I emerged self-absorbed from my mother’s womb and must remain self-centred throughout my entire life.

Let me put it another way. The label self-absorbed does not attach itself to me because of some fatal flaw in my makeup; it attaches itself simply because I have always tended behave in a certain way. This means that I can transcend the label anytime I want simply by changing my behaviour.

In fact, I have already made a start. I began by taking out by taking out my credit card and setting up a regular donation to a worthwhile charity; and then I committed myself to spending an afternoon each week doing voluntary work at an orphanage here in Vietnam.

I am not blowing my own trumpet here. My commitment of time and money is very modest and gives me little cause for self-congratulation. I am simply making the point that when saddened and disappointed by what I am, I can draw inspiration and courage from the thought of what I may yet become.

What would be the use of me sitting and bemoaning my egocentricity? Or saying to myself, ‘Poor me, I have such a selfish disposition!’ Disposition be damned. It is my actions that define me.

Once a coward, always a coward?

In his 1946 lecture, Existentialism is a Humanism, the French Philosopher, Jean-Paul Sartre (1905-1980), addresses the question of what it is that makes a coward a coward, and a hero a hero.

“What people would prefer,” he says, “would be to be born either a coward or a hero… If you are born cowards, you can be quite content, you can do nothing about it… and if you are born heroes you can again be quite content; you will be heroes all your lives, eating and drinking heroically.”

Sartre rejects this notion outright. “[T]he coward makes himself cowardly, the hero makes himself heroic;” he says, “… there is always a possibility for a coward to give up cowardice and for the hero to stop being a hero.”

Redefining ourselves

I find this inspiring. There are many negative labels that we can attach to ourselves: self-absorbed, greedy, lazy, cowardly, unassertive, etc. But if Sartre is right (and I think he is) these labels do not attach to what we are, they attach to what we do. This is very good news, since it means that while there is life there is hope. As long as we live, we have the potential to change and develop; to become.

In his very readable book, Sartre: a Guide for the Perplexed, author Gary Cox puts it succinctly: “The ever-present possibility of transcending a label in the future necessarily prevents a person from ever permanently attaching a label to himself… Until death, a person can never arrive at a position where redefinition is impossible.”

Change is a fundamental feature of our nature as human beings. I, for one, intend to embrace it.