Be Changeless

Changelessness.

It’s an interesting word. Sounds almost oxymoronic — a contradiction.

Isn’t change the new constant? Why change less? Shouldn’t we change more?

And in this new VUCA world, arent we always changing? As if pushed by an invisible hand — asking, sometimes forcing us to change ourselves, to reinvent, to see anew. What good is staying the same? That is boring. It’s regressive. We must change. We must change others. Or we will be left behind.

But there is a certain beauty in the word. It signifies a certain durability. A steadfastness. A lasting strength. And it’s a human quality. After all, we long for a time that was simpler. Before it all changed. There is a certain nostalgic value we attach to the permanence of things we value. We reminisce- if only things could go back to the way they were!

We fill our lives with regrets. If only we had not changed, if only we had taken the opportunity, if only we had made the right decisions.

But being changeless is not remembering ‘the good old times’. It about staying true to what is changeless — values, beliefs, love. It’s not about going backwards. It’s about going forward.

Charles Dickens wrote,

“We changed again, and yet again, and it was now too late and too far to go back, and I went on. And the mists had all solemnly risen now, and the world lay spread before me.”

There is a certain immutability to being changeless that makes you stronger. It’s having the endurance to continue to be who you are. Against adversity, Against all odds.

Don’t apologize for your changelessness. There is courage and bravery in being changeless. There is vulnerability too. But it also means that you value your true worth and you know that who you are is non-negotiable.

“Only they can change, who have a core inside of changelessness.”

Me and my brothers found these words scribbled on the margins of a book that my father regularly read. He might have written it just a few days before he died.

My father loved Dickens. And like Dickens, he made the most of his modest beginnings, worked hard, built a decent living, cared for his family.

He wasn’t a perfect father.

But he always valued the parts of his life that he would consider changeless — his values, his family. To us, the word changeless has become a symbol of who he was. How he lived his life. How he never apologized for who he was and what he believed in.

Being changeless is about discovering your own truth. Revelling in your own constancy. Valuing your own true strengths. Not being shaken by the many expectations that society or your life might impose on you.

It is becoming who you were born to be.