(More writing from Alex Caldon can be found in the book The Quest for Truth: On Finding The Grail, which is available from www.thequestfortruth.co.uk. FREE copies are available there to some people.  Happy Questing! )

Wanna change?  Wanna grow?

No and Yes, well yes or no?!

Gotta change ‘cause change is growth!

So Yes and Yes, ye gads, ‘tis Truth!

A group of friends were discussing jobs in the public sector and their respective perks.  One of the friends was a teacher, and she was arguing the case that teachers deserved long holidays as their job was so stressful; she claimed the holidays were necessary in order to wind down.  Another of the friends, Debby, pointed out that other public sector jobs were stressful, but they didn’t get such long holidays.  She put forward the example of fire fighting as another stressful public sector job.  Then Alan chipped in, pointing out that fire crews worked on a rota of a few days on then a few days off which provided them with plenty of free time.

“Oh yeah, that’s true.” replied Debby.

Alan burst into laughter, and mimicking Debby, he ridiculed her for changing her mind so immediately.  Alan’s reaction revealed something profound about the human species:  very often people see change as foolish.  If we were more able to admit the need for change we would have a better world.  It’s not surprising that people are unwilling to change when they risk the ridicule which Alan dished out in this example.  But Debby was right to change her mind.  She was receptive to the truth which was put to her, and her perception became more accurate; in effect she grew mentally and spiritually.  In a healthy world people would be applauded for changing their minds; then the human race could grow more easily.  Politicians, for example, are unlikely to admit when they have been wrong in the past if we ridicule them for changing. 

It is unusual for a person to be so willing to change, but there have been individuals who have shown the way.  Gandhi was such a person.  He would very often drive fellow politicians to distraction as he might have an opinion one day, and the following day think completely the opposite!  He was sometimes ridiculed for being inconsistent; to this he replied: “Do I contradict myself?  Consistency is a hob-goblin!”  By that he meant being consistent was not always a good thing.  He would not allow himself to adhere rigidly to any dogma, when the truth showed that dogma to be incorrect.  That would have been silly.  He claimed he wanted to grow “from truth to truth”.  It may have been difficult to pin him down, but ultimately Gandhi’s enthusiasm for the truth was the source of power which helped him achieve his goals.

So...

 “When the facts change, I change my mind.”  John Maynard Keynes

And…

“To improve is to change; to be perfect is to change often.”  Winston Churchill

But also…

"To live is to change, to change is to live…and not to change is to die."  Tennessee Williams

And notwithstanding the above…

“It is not the strongest of the species who survive, not the most intelligent, but those who are the most adaptive to change."  Charles Darwin

One more...

“Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future."

John F. Kennedy