Change: Accept it, embrace it

This will be my last post as a civilian.

"Aha!"  I hear those of you who know me cry.  "This week Jim is going to go on a highly emotional shpeel about how much attending BRNC means to him!  Case bloody closed!"  Well, no, I'm afraid.  The Navy in this instance has actually acted as something of a catalyst, causing two reactions.  The first reaction is an announcement.  This is that the tales of my trials, tribulations and general adventures in the Senior Service will not be posted on this blog, but on a new one to be created in due course.  The second reaction is that, having announced this change, the thought of it has led me on to the subject of this week's post:  Life's changes, and the different ways of coping with them.

Everyone goes through changes in life, and I'm not just talking about the obvious ones like the difficult transition through puberty which involves things like accepting that you have to shower and wear deodorant daily (What?!  I'm referring to the kids I was at school with not me!  God, what do you take me for?  Actually, don't answer that).   I'm talking about the moments in life when we find ourselves starting a whole new chapter, a blank page, an opportunity to put the the past behind you and from here on in be whatever and whoever you want to be.

Everyone finds themselves confronting these moments, and its how we deal with these changes that help define who we are as people.  Some of us resist change because it means a breakaway from the familiar;  you've had your Mum cook your meals your whole life, so who the bloody hell is going to cook them if you move out?!  You?  Oh come on be serious you've never even held a saucepan apart from that time you were caught pretending it was a lightsaber when you were six!  What's that?  What do you mean "No time like the present?"!  Oh bloody hell you're serious aren't you?! (Again, some of the kids I was at school with, not me!)

At the opposite end of the scale, as is so often the case in my life things are either everything or nothing with no middle ground, change is to be taken head on at the charge and accepted and embraced for all its worth.  This is the option I always go for in life, when I board that train to Dartmouth as far as I'm concerned that is my life until Passing Out.  Wilfully accepting change is a wonderful feeling, like taking a step into the unknown, you are your life's own pioneer and by going out there and exploring new things who knows what you'll discover?  It could be for the better, or it could be for the much much worse, but whatever its for it will make you a more confident person if you go in face first, gun's blazing and shouting "Do your worst World, because I will do mine!"

And it is that courage to make a change that can define one person from another.

P.S.  All my philosophical rants will still be posted up here, some things just can't change!