Should ‘change’ be the only constant?

Change is the only constant, a saying that has indeed been overused over the years. I, however as I analyse the statement, have come to the conclusion that although it is true in all senses of its ramifications, for it to be of any true use to an individual or a society, an addition, or in this case, a slight modification must be made to the statement. My derivative from the statement says, “Improvement becomes worthwhile only when the effort is constant”. There are reasons why I prefer this derived statement.

The first being the different perspective it offers on change. Change, as would be agreed in consensus, could represent a variety of eventualities that could be within or outside our control. Simply referring to these eventualities as change in my opinion reduces the level of responsibility we might carry towards the events in our immediate environment. We, by surrendering to the current notion and perceived uncontrollable nature of change, surrender our ability subconsciously to actively pursue eventualities that we desire. Granted that to those who believe in the existence of God, such as I, believe in His ability to shape our journey. Yet I dare say, we are guilty of leaving too much to him. We are guilty of simply accepting that change would occur and this makes us a reactionary people. And history has shown that a reactionary society, one that we have become, would naturally find it difficult to develop itself culturally, socially and even politically.

The Christian faithful are aware that God says ask and you shall receive, come onto me and receive thy blessing. The Muslim, in tune with his Islamic history and traditions, would be aware that the Prophet Muhammad said “Believe in Allah, but tie your camel”. One may wonder how these statements are relevant but a true Nigerian in every sense would identify that we as a society fail to heed to these advice. We simply accept that the changes, which of recent are of a negative nature, will occur, and thereby assume neutrality fuelled by the complacence generated by the acceptance of the status quo, which is our default reaction to ‘change’. We easily forget that the scriptures we ‘vehemently’ follow encourage us to stand up for our rights, to protect our beings, to actively attempt to negate negative changes, to seek improvement of our living standards and reject negative changes such as the Jonathan transformation agenda. Using the holy prophet’s analogy once more, believing in God and going to sleep while your camel is untied, will most likely leave your faith unrewarded as your camel would be long gone in the morning. However, trusting in God and taking active measures through conscious effort, by tying the camel would be much wiser, as you would wake up and your camel would be stationed as you left it.

This is why I propose the substitution of ‘change’ in the old saying to ‘improvement’, improvement because it implies a positive change. When you actively seek to positively change your condition, God above who plans will no doubt be the breeze that pushes your plans to fruition for you will have decided to stand up and go onto Him.

The second reason I am more inclined towards my derivative of the old saying is the fact that it implies that the improvement to which we ought to aspire is only guaranteed through sustained and persistent effort. We have no right to complain to God of our circumstances when we have not tried to rectify them ourselves. Miracles do happen but it is simply arrogant for us as humans to expect God to come down and attend to our plight without us making an effort. We forfeit our right to complain, as a person who abstains from voting forfeits his right to have an opinion on any activity of the people in power during that particular tenure.

We have to actively earn our voices, our rights, our divinely and constitutionally prescribed right. And as a nation in these times, we can no longer afford to rest on the mediocrity of political abstinence. It goes against every law of nature to keep quiet in the face of injustice as is occurring in this nation. The result of our silence against injustice, which is in my opinion worse than supporting the injustice, is the conspiring of forces of nature in the form of karma to punish our inaction. It is time for us as a nation to actively seek penance for our inaction as thousands of our brethren were slaughtered and we sat quietly without questioning the lacklustre reaction of the entity that was designed to protect us as a whole. We have to make our feelings known, peacefully through the polls. We have to be brave in our constant effort to seek the improvement of our circumstances, rather than accepting that the change we are currently experiencing in the country is constant, that such change is our fate.

Change is the only constant; but should it be? I would much rather prefer improvement to be the constant. That however requires persistent effort on our part; effort where we actively try to influence the events in our environments. I am aware that many will say God’s plan will always end up being what will be. I totally agree, but I also believe God did not create lazy complacent people, nothing great has ever been achieved by anyone sitting, waiting and accepting changes of a negative nature, and if that is the course we as a majority of people in this nation choose to do at this point in time, then we will fully deserve whatever fate we meet.

Mohammed can be reached at amin_moha26@ yahoo.com