Is it just me, or is the Christmas spirit starting to show up? I’m starting to feel it. I am not going to put on a red Santa outfit or sit on Santa’s lap, but I don’t know . . . it’s just . . .

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas
Everywhere you go.
Take a look at the five and ten,
glistening once again,
with candy canes and silver lanes aglow…

Okay, enough of the Christmas spirit for today. Let’s move on to today’s topic . . .

Today’s blog is going to get you really thinking. Let me ask you a question: Are you lazy when you are in a relationship? I am not talking about a relationship with someone of the opposite sex.

I am talking about in your relationship with yourself. Do you get lazy with yourself?

When I say ‘lazy with yourself,’ what I mean is do you know you have something about yourself you want to change but you don’t change it due to fear or laziness?

Do you realize that there is a negative connotation to the word change? Whether it was your mother, your grandmother, your father or your favorite aunt, somebody probably told you never to change for anyone (and that people should like you just as you are).

We’ve heard that over and over again throughout our entire existence.  We’ve heard “don’t change for anyone” and “people will love you just the way you are.”

Well, do you know what I say to those things? Wrong!

I truly believe that change is good. Change is strong. Change is positive. Change is necessary!

Say you meet someone and get into a relationship. People will tell you not to change your core. You know what? You had better change your core. It’s called growing.

To me, change means growth. It means that as a human being, I am evolving more deeply than I ever have before. It means I am evolving in ways I never thought I would evolve. I’m experiencing new things, new feeling and new emotions.

Change is great, but we have such a negative association to the word. You cannot change a person, but you can show them how to grow. When someone doesn’t want to grow and make changes, that is a person who is going to miss out on a lot in life.

I am very different than what I was 22 years ago. I want to constantly keep evolving.

Perhaps if we used the word “evolve” instead of “change,” more people would be open to it. Everyone needs to get rid of the negative connotation to the word change.

When you’re in a relationship with yourself or with someone else, you should not ever change for someone but you should evolve with them (and for them). When you evolve, you grow.

When you refuse to change, you become stagnant. When you are stagnant, you get the same lousy relationships with yourself and with other people over and over again.  

It’s something that all of us need to learn. We need to learn how to embrace growth and change, because it’s a wonderful thing.

Think about it in sports terms. Look at Eric Mangini. He is a terrible coach because he hasn’t changed his ways at all. He’s young. He’s stupid.

He acts like he wants to be Bill Belichick. He thinks he is Bill Belichick, but yet he hasn’t learned, grown, or changed his losing attitude. He’s carried his same losing ways from the Jets to Cleveland.

In life, you must learn from experiences and change. Change is good. Change means evolving. Change means that you are willing to see things through the eyes of another person.

All of us have messages for each other. I am just a messenger for a lot of you, here to teach you some lessons. The lesson this time? Realize how powerful change can be.