Glimmer

When people make the actual decision to change

There is nothing remarkable about their lives in that moment

There is little visible evidence of the change they have decided to make;

The beer bottle is still in their hand, they are still in debt, the weight has not been lost yet,

They are right in the middle of the very thing they are deciding to leave behind.

And sometimes the people that have known them the best;

their family and friends

Are the hardest ones to convince of the sincerity of their decision.

Because those closest to them have known their former ways and

Need concrete evidence lest they be disappointed.

Perhaps many promises of change have been made and broken

And believing these declarations of change has become harder and harder each time.

They want to see more than a glimmer of hope

Than a hint of change.

They have to see it to believe it.

The trouble is, the people closest to individuals who really want to change

Are often the biggest contributors to and reinforce-rs of this change

Yet they are often initially the most skeptical of the change itself.

And perhaps this skepticism actually serves to extinguish the tiny flame

Of change

And it never get the chance to manifest.

 

 

Its been argued that individuals who threaten to commit suicide

Should always be taken seriously

And not dismissed as just seeking attention

Or making a scene,

Because what if they actually do it?

Will our skepticism have a leg to stand on?

Now imagine what it would be like to take people at their word who

Say they want to change.

What would happen?

Sure, we’d be disappointed if the change is slow or short lived

And that can truly be a hard thing to do, time and time again.

The question rages in our minds, ”Is this change for real?”

And so we don’t buy it.

But maybe if we ask ourselves a harder question

We’d see that our attitudes towards this change

Could influence whether the change actually comes about or not.

We can rather ask :

”Do we really want  to be counted among the barriers

That our loved ones had to overcome in order to make good

Of their decision to change? To grow?

To become the very people we have dream them to be?”

 

Perhaps that glimmer of hope doesn’t stand a chance against

The forces of your doubt.

 

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