What's up with that Change Stuff?

Constant change can be one of the hardest elements of life to accept. In times of happiness and success it is the thing we fear and detest the most. In periods of self doubt and failure it offers a hope that allows us to persevere. Without change we would not fear falling; however, without it we could never climb higher.


Life is about the experience not actually about achieving the goals we set. The goals we create are our way of occupying ourselves and allowing us to feel as though we have accomplished something and made an impact. In reality we are all just searching for a way to avoid idleness. Change is the key factor in preventing monotony. It creates the obstacles which we spend much of our time working against and developing our character. For whatever losses we may suffer we are offered opportunities to gain success. This idea affords us hope and allows us to have faith, not in consistency but in a concept that whatever may happen it will lead to an even greater good.

What gives many people a sense of purpose is the attempt to experience all that they can. We find a feeling of fulfillment in understanding new people, learning new skills, seeing new places, and feeling new emotions. The effort to control one’s experiences leads to stress caused by the endeavor to control and ignorance caused by the unchanging surroundings. In this way change is essential to our feeling of fulfillment.


Unfortunately, change’s true role in our lives is often misinterpreted and misrepresented. People have spent much of their lives resisting change without ever realizing that this quality is what we require for a fulfilling life, a life that leaves us with a feeling of action and accomplishment. Tragically, many times it is close to the end of a person’s life when he realizes that his efforts to reverse change have been futile and have actually prevented his moving on towards greater happiness. What may occur even more often, yet is possibly worse, is when one never realizes change’s positive role in life.

The evolution of man’s concept of change is conveyed through Gilgamesh’s story in the Epic of Gilgamesh. Gilgamesh is introduced as the all powerful ruler of Uruk, two thirds god and one third man. His power is lustful and absolute. “A goddess made him, strong as a savage bull, none can withstand his arms…His lust leaves no virgin to her lover, neither the warrior’s daughter nor the wife of the noble (62).” Gilgamesh treasures this power and supremacy over mankind. This love for power starts Gilgamesh’s search for immortality. While he actively pursues risk and danger to his own life, his fear of death is still very alive. He suppresses this fear with his constant victories and manifestations of power which seem to convey a sense of unbeatable never-ending strength. “…Gilgamesh who seized and killed the Bull of Heaven, who killed the watchman of the cedar forest, who overthrew Humbaba that lived in the forest, and killed the lions in the passes of the mountain…(101).”


Despite his victory against Humbaba, Gilgamesh suffers a terrible loss, Enkidu, his lover and companion in battle Gilgamesh’s reaction to Enkidu’s death clearly shows the next step in the evolution of our feelings towards change, resistance. Just like the prophecy of his life, “The father of the gods has given you kingship, such is your destiny, everlasting life is not your destiny (70),” Gilgamesh rejects death as an inevitable step in life. “How can I rest, how can I be at peace? Despair is in my heart. What my brother is now, that shall I be when I am dead. Because I am afraid of death I will go as best I can to find Utnapishtim whom they call the Faraway, for he has entered the assembly of the gods (97).” Gilgamesh believes that if he can find Utnapishtim, he can learn the path to immortality and avoid facing the fear of death which has realized with the loss of Enkidu.

Utnapishtim’s lesson for Gilgamesh brings Gilgamesh to the final stage of our feelings towards change, acceptance. Utnapishtim has experienced the ability to avoid change and live a life of complete consistency. From this he has learned how undesirable idleness is. His reply to Gilgamesh’s desire for immortality is a lesson of his own suffering due to that very same quality. He states, “There is no permanence (106).” Utnapishtim’s lesson is very similar to the prophecy of Gilgamesh’s life which I mentioned before. As humans we have given up immortality, but in its place we have acquired the ability to gain and to lose, to love and to hate, to do good and to do evil, and achieve many more things. The prophecy states, “He has given you power to bind and to loose, to be the darkness and the light of mankind (70).” Utnapishtim longs to have this ability again and is, in fact, jealous of Gilgamesh. Ultimately Gilgamesh realizes that what makes life worthwhile is not avoiding its end for as long as possible, but knowing that you made the best of the time that you had.


Enkidu undergoes a similar development. The harlot changes Enkidu from a wild beast ignorant of mankind and the idea of mortality to a man who wears clothes to cover his naked body and searches for immortality. However, Enkidu does not come to the stage of resistance until after he realizes he is dieing. This is when the change has shown its negative effects. Enkidu is going to die and leave his lover behind. He laments the change. “When he had cursed the Trapper to his heart’s content he turned on the harlot (90).” However, when Shamash, the sun and god of wisdom, explains to Enkidu that the change caused by the harlot allowed him to gain his companion Gilgamesh and be known throughout the land as a hero, Enkidu reverses his curses on the harlot. Enkidu is enlightened to the positive side of change. With this appreciation he is able to see the success of his life and find meaning in it.

My own life experiences also help to give incite into change’s purpose in our lives. The greatest change of my life has been moving. Greatest, as used in the previous sentence, can mean both the largest and the most positive. Moving took me out of all that I had known for 12 years, which encompassed almost all that I could remember. When I finally realized that I was really being removed from this environment which I had become so adjusted to I was upset. The last few nights in Pepper Pike were very tough. However, as time progressed in Woodbridge, CT I realized how positive the change really was.


I have gained many more friends than I originally had in Pepper Pike. I have also learned a great deal about myself and about understanding other people since I moved. I would like to think that my purpose is to become the best person that I can. If one breaks down what being the best person one can means one realizes it is understanding more types of people, appreciating more ways of life, acquiring new points of views, and strengthening the ability of one’s foresight. How did I get up every morning knowing that everything had changed? I had a hope that tomorrow would be a brighter day. As it turns out, I don’t think I was too wrong in that belief.