Standing up off the floor, empty chicken-rice container in hand, I found myself grimacing.
There was no one around me, no one this grimace was for. It was not even for myself . I just happened to catch it this time.
It was a rare window of self-insight–like a quarter glimmering at the bottom of a lake. And I could all at once see that I was becoming — had already become — a hunched over, grimacing being.
From chicken-rice to mouth, container to chute, elevator to building grimacing: hating my responsibilities, wrestling with irritation at the state of my life.
I have never imagined myself to be an irritable person.
But now, without ever choosing it, I see myself being driven by currents of frustration in the simple moments of my day.
The above realisation dawned on me as I walked to the garbage chute to throw my box of chicken-rice. I smiled at the angry muppet I was becoming. Maybe I should have been disappointed, but I was relieved to finally see.
Change happens to us imperceptibly and then all at once. We are lucky if we ever catch it in the act.
Lucky not because it is easy to stop change or turn things back. It isn’t easy to hold on to one good thing outside the order of this universe.
We are lucky because the recognition of change entails our possibility to participate in it.
Every moment we open our eyes to the facts of our life is a moment ripe with the possibility of choosing the way we change.
The opportunity for change is staring us in the face.
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