Have you ever tried to capture a handful of breeze?

Take a long, careful look at yourself in the mirror. Not to count your imperfections or check yourself before leaving for a party. Take a deep, steady look at your reflection when you don’t have to. Look yourself in the eye. Do you want others to change their behavior to make your life happier and more fulfilled? Do you want to push them hard or mold them to suit your desires?

If you feel this way, pause. There is power in pausing. Pause as long as you can. Then consider this: Have you ever caught and kept a handful of breeze? We all love a cool, gentle breeze. It gives us a sense of well-being and freedom. Can you capture the breeze and order it to blow when you want it to? Mission impossible, isn’t it?

Every individual in your life is like a little breeze, blowing in their own direction. Their being in your life does not give you the power to contain them as you please. They will flow along, searching for answers that may be very different than yours. When you try to control them, they blow away, leaving you with nothing.

People agree to ‘change’ if they feel forced to act in a certain way in a certain environment. They might be economically dependent on you. You may be trying to inject life into a dead relationship because you are clinging on, not knowing how to let go or free yourself. Very soon, cracks appear again and the strain blows you apart anyway. You can never be anyone you are not in order to please someone else.

Change never happens because someone else asks or orders you to change. You have to want to change from within. You must be motivated to change. Change can also happen out of love, without the other person asking it of you. If you deeply care for someone, you will change for the better. Maybe changing certain behaviors will make them happier. Making them feel happier makes you happy too.

You do have the option of living a life of smug mediocrity, always finding fault in others and bullying them into temporary submission. Once you accomplish that, you also have the option of finding the next thing to complain about, always blaming external elements for your discontentment. Your resentment will only increase as you go through life trying to capture and contain others to suit your needs.

Confucius asks us not to complain about the snow on our neighbor’s roof when our own doorsteps are unclean. Before trying to change someone else, write down all the things you would like to change about yourself. Start working on the list, item by item. Once you start looking at yourself as a work in progress, the desire to change others will recede. You will have no time or inclination to think about the dirt in someone else’s house because you are busy cleaning your own.

What do you have that makes others feel good? What do you have that you know is awful? Don’t beat yourself up. No one is perfect. Be glad that you have the self-awareness to recognize your awful parts. Be grateful that you are not living a life of comfortable delusion, believing yourself to be perfect and flinging advice to others on how to change themselves. Work on replenishing those areas that are not as full because you can only give to others what you have.

Never give up attempting to become the strongest version of yourself. Clear your path a little every day, even if you are able to remove only a small stone. You will soon be able to move bigger stones out of your way. When you feel tired, refresh yourself by enjoying Nature’s fullness around you. Shout for help when you get stuck. Someone will answer your call. You will meet people who are in sync with you. It is going to be an exciting hike because you never know what’s around the corner but it will be an immensely enjoyable one.

“How long can you afford to put off who you really want to be? Your nobler self cannot wait any longer. Put your principles into practice – now. Stop the excuses and the procrastination. This is your life!” – Epictetus

Image: “High Above Jupiter’s Clouds” by Gerald Eichstädt and Sean Doran (CC BY-NC-SA) based on images provided Courtesy of NASA/JPL-Caltech/SwRI/MSSS