Changes

When I think about Martin Luther King, Jr., one thing comes to mind. Change. He became instrumental to the world’s civil rights movement because he took action to alter the status quo. He encouraged his followers to take action to be granted certain rights such as the right to march and the right to congregate to talk about being allowed to vote.  King's message here was very clear: you must act now to bring change. Every time you act now, you have won whether the outcome is good or bad.
It is then a good coincidence that the day to commemorate one the most famous figures in history falls in the beginning of the year. The New Year, for most of us, heralds a lot of changes or at least the desire for it. We have resolutions for diet plans, getting a new job, kicking a bad habit or breaking up a toxic relationship, but how many have we honestly kept throughout the year?

 
I bring focus back to ourselves because someone as great as Martin Luther King, Jr. started with himself before he could affect change in others. Nowadays, I think we fall into pattern of procrastination or complacency. We think just because something works or is comfortable for us doesn’t mean it doesn’t have to be changed. We always have a better choice or a better option to become a better person, but we don’t take it because we have too many excuses. Not a lot of time, no money, we are afraid or we are simply too lazy to take action. 

 
A perfect example that comes to mind of a small action affecting a big change is Rosa Parks.  When asked to give up her seat in a bus she simply said ‘no’. That had a ripple effect that inspired thousands of African-Americans, even Martin Luther King, Jr. Imagine if she thought twice about not giving up her seat because she didn’t have time to argue with the bus driver; where would the civil rights movement be now? In a 1992 interview with National Public Radio's Lynn Neary, Parks recalled:

“I did not want to be mistreated, I did not want to be deprived of a seat that I had paid for. It was just time... there was opportunity for me to take a stand to express the way I felt about being treated in that manner. I had not planned to get arrested. I had plenty to do without having to end up in jail. But when I had to face that decision, I didn’t hesitate to do so because I felt that we had endured that too long. The more we gave in, the more we complied with that kind of treatment, the more oppressive it became.”

Of course, I realize not all of us are in a similar situation of oppression or suffering. There are a lot of things that we can stand to change beginning with our perception.  If we change how we perceive things we can change our reality. The change we do doesn’t have to be drastic, it can be a steady accumulation of little actions. Think about it. We can only grow and learn from all of this.

-Grace is a blogger for The Sorbate. Check out her bio to see where her view comes from.