In January and February, the lands are painted white by the winter’s might. Forests are like a threadbare shirt — the utter lack of foliage making them as transparent as possible, the skeletal trees practically dead.
March and April, the sun is yet yawning and drowsy, but gradually setting a goodly pace. The animals are starting to bring forth their young to enjoy the rare and tender shoots of the overeager greens daring to burst forth from the stimulative days of new heat.
May and June, the snow has finally receded, forming wet pools for frogspawn and the undergrowth to take root. All of the offspring of the earth begin frolicking and the endless flowers explode in their arrays.
July and August, the sun now is beaming bright and long, running daily marathons high overhead. Shadows have shrunk away from its power. The people and animals of the earth are busy sowing, living, and playing in full force in the plentiful light.
By September and October the sun has grown weary, slowly resting its head earlier and earlier. All that was green has now aged into oranges, yellows, and reds. The once precocious children of the creatures have become young adults, looking for partners and territories of their own.
November and December invites creatures to begin building their stores, nests. They are growing fluffy and plump, not because they know they must, but because their very nature dictates it as the great, long, and dark mantle of winter comes to lay upon the shoulders of the earth.
— — —
So many of us insist that “today is the day I make a change” and jump into new diets.
New relationships.
New patterns.
New behaviors.
But that isn’t how sustainable change works.
It happens so slowly it is practically imperceptible.
One day you are young, smooth-faced, and your hair is a colorful brown.
The next day you are still essentially the same age, just as smooth-faced, and your hair is unchanged.
But gradually our environment, behaviors, and biology give way and that once smooth face may have a crease. Those beautifully brown locks may magically have a gray.
So, how can we expect we can change things as ingrained as our habits more rapidly than this?
We cannot.
We must slowly, steadily, and with determination (and perhaps some tracking!) work gradually at change.
How would you like to change?
Follow for daily philosophical meditations.
These are distillations from my coming book “YouDaimonia: the Ancient Philosophy of Human Flourishing.”
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