Change: A fundamental choice.
I once sat alone in a remote part of Sikkim watching a mountain rapid. It was fierce, relentless, and mesmerizing as it raced down the valley. Massive boulders stood in its way — silent, unmoving, and seemingly impossible to overcome.
Those boulders became a metaphor for life’s obstacles. They represented the challenges we all encounter — the setbacks, uncertainties, disappointments, and moments that test us.
What fascinated me was not the power of the rapid, but its character.
The rapid never stopped. It did not fight the rocks or blame them for standing in its path. It did not wish the landscape were different. It simply responded.
It flowed over some boulders, around others, and beneath those it could not cross. Every boulder changed its course, but none changed its determination to meet the sea.
That day, the river taught me that change is a fundamental choice.
Change is not for the faint-hearted. It demands courage — the courage to look within, to love and forgive ourselves, and to accept that growth begins when we stop searching for someone or something to blame.
Change asks us to take ownership of our decisions, our responses, and the direction of our lives.
Sometimes courage means choosing the path less trodden. It means stepping away from what is familiar and comfortable, not because the journey will be easy, but because transformation rarely happens without discomfort.
Like the mountain rapid, we cannot always choose the obstacles before us. Life will place boulders in our path. But we can choose how we respond.
We can resist and remain stuck, or we can adapt and continue moving forward.
The rapid does not lose itself by changing its course. Instead, it discovers new pathways and becomes more fully what it was meant to be.
Perhaps that is the true nature of change: not abandoning who we are, but having the courage to become who we can be.
The boulders may shape our journey, but they do not define our destination.
– Dr Dom @Counselling with Dom