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Okay, so I’ll start this one off with a little cartoon—just to, you know—make this discussion about change a little more kid friendly (since very little things are kid-friendly nowadays. It’s almost like all the adults want to exclude all the children from whatever they do.

Won’t put the blame on them, though.

A lot of us grown-ups want to let go of and forget what we once were, and children are a painfully obvious reminder of that.)

Not to fret, not to fret. We’ll get there in time.

This is a blog series regarding change. You’re currently reading the seventh part, so if you’re new in the club, I welcome you and I would suggest going back to the first blog post, or navigate to the others through here: My Formula for Changing the World.

Now let’s kick it off.

Who Wants Change?

Who really wants to change?

That’s of course a question I should’ve asked in the fist blog post, but since we can’t go back there now, here I am, asking all my beloved readers—who among you really wants to change?

All of us. I do too, obviously.

Because in this world right now, all around, we all can see hundreds of thousands of things that should have been different. Like, some things are so wrong that someone should immediately be worried about changing them. And some people are so wrong too that someone should definitely be thinking about getting them straight and narrow on their path.

This is mainly because our human mentality can’t let them go unnoticed because it’s really hard for some of us to stay quiet in the face of injustice. For some, it comes naturally.

Some of these bad things I noticed were compiled and put together in the previous post: 5 Types of Prejudices Embedded in Our Minds.

So, the thing I inferred from this cartoon was—

Who wants change? All hands go up.

Who wants to change? No hands go up.

At some other place, I even read the extended version of this cartoon, and it said, Who wants to lead the change? All the people flee.

This is us.

This is the human population. And we all are so proud to be us, because we are weird, and crazy, and attention-deficit, hyperactivated, ambitious, sometimes lazy, huge procrastinators, hopeless, lovesick, judgemental, emotional idiots, and so many other things.

God forbid if we changed ourselves.

Our parents love us as we are and our friends flock us.

Life is good.

We all know how to point out the flaws, even those teeny-meeny-minor ones that we find in other people, but we lack mirrors of the soul that can make us see ourselves. (All we have our glasses polished with silver like Grimhilde’s that tell us what we need to hear.)

Some of us lack self-awareness. Like people’s mouths lack filters. Like vampires lack sunlight.

Pretty strange world we live in.

So I’m not going to be an exception to this almighty universal law and tell you to change yourself and hope that you listen, because I would be trying in vain.

I’m not going to tell you what to do. I’m going to document my own actions and show you that I—for one, like many others—am willing to change and I’d love for you to follow along side me. (No pressure! I’ll just have some companionship along the way.)

My own experience from seeing this web comic strip and analyzing it for this blog post was that you can never—not in a million years—change this world by forcing it to change.

You can’t force the people here to change.

They would never do that. Not ever.

What you have to do instead is, you have to show them the change.

You have to show them how that change has affected you, so that they can admire you and the positive vibe in your life.

And only then will they start taking actions regarding this too.

Nobody Likes Taking the First Step of Change

So basically, the thing is that people are always hesitant to take the first step because the human mind doesn’t know what awaits it on the next staircase, and what we’re just afraid of is the darkness and the unknown.

The unfamiliarity unsettles us.

If we can just get past this stage of discomfort, and get past our fears and past-traumas, then we can begin to see the truer, bigger picture that’s waiting to be discovered.

If we see someone else walking ahead first, taking the step without hesitation, leading the change, and we see how there is an important, ulterior motive behind all of it, then we’d definitely be happy to follow.

But it won’t be possible to find that one spark everywhere, as they are seen less.

What this present generation needs to do is teach their children, teach their progeny to not be afraid of leading the change.

Because this—Gen Z—will be the ones who’ll either worsen the situation of this planet, or lead it towards a positive dawn.

It’s up to us what we make it to be. That doesn’t mean there’s no hope for the adults.

Once again, I was aiming to make this discussion kid-friendly, so it was only justified to praise the younger ones a little.

Coming back to the adults, what can we now do to bring meaning to this cartoon and shine our light on it?

Easy. We can act.

We can act free of reluctance, of hesitation, and of fear.

It’s no use dictating someone else how to do things, but it is useful doing things your way yourself and hence setting up an example.

Imagine being the one person left standing there in the arena, even after everyone else has fled, when the speaker asks about who wants to lead the change.

Imagine being the leader. The lens looks different from there.

It is only a citizen’s initiative to bring change, but the same is a leader’s responsibility.

Nobody Likes Being Told What to Do

I’m assuming you don’t either.

We are all highly sensitive and also egotistical pricks. Yeah, pricks.

We all want to live life on our own terms, and of course that’s the best way to live life too.

But even then, you must’ve noticed that it’s hard to find initiative, to find someone willingly taking the first step. With self-motivation. And if you are that one, and I’ve at last found you, then I think we can begin to work further.

Time for a little self-audit, I think, where you basically just ask yourself questions and then find the answers somewhere within too.

Ask yourself these questions. And don’t forget to be honest. Filter-less, Brutally honest.

How do you want the world to change?

What change do you want to bring?

What are some of the changes you’d like to see in people around you?

Now it’s time to bring those changes in yourself.

You want to change? Bring that change.

I know all of you must’ve heard this way many times before, but in order to repeat it just for the sake of Gandhi, I’ll say, Be the change you want to see in the world.

Conclusion

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