5 Practical Ways to Adapt to Change (Instead of Avoiding It)

Everything flows (Panta rei, Gr. Πάντα ῥεῖ).

The phrase comes from the Greek philosopher Heraclitus who, like many before and after him, have contemplated and tried to make sense of change. What did he mean by that? Everything flows, much like a river flows. The world never stays the same; it is constantly changing.

This sounds obvious, doesn’t it? Yet, every time a change happens in our life, we experience a certain level of fear. Change scares us; it makes us uncomfortable. It shows up unannounced, and we don’t know exactly what we’re dealing with. Before we know the facts, we start making assumptions. It will be bad. We will have to suffer in one way or another. Nothing good can come from it. Most likely, the change will have a negative effect on our life. All of it makes us feel like we are far outside our comfort zone. What’s the immediate reaction?

We resist it.

That is a very human thing to do. But with resistance comes suffering — because we are not willing to acknowledge that our circumstances are changing. The thoughts we have when we want to resist the change are the ones that contribute more fear, more anxiety, more worry, and the vicious cycle begins. Is there a way out of this? The Stoic philosophers took a pragmatic approach to this situation. By saying Panta…