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Click -- Writer's Poke #440






Sometimes change is thrust upon us, yes, but I'm much more interested in the changes we initiate ourselves.  

Why do we initiate change in our lives? We can walk in the same direction for years, but then all of a sudden, we decide to walk in a different direction. It’s likely that there’s a build-up leading up to the moment we make the decision, but the moment itself “clicks” us in. After the clicking moment occurs, it will take another series of events to ever cause us to change direction again.

Sometimes the clicking moment occurs because we’ve experienced a significant event. For example, I stopped biting my fingers this year; that wasn’t one of my planned goals, but after getting a bad infection and having to visit the ER at 2 a.m., I discovered it wasn’t all that difficult to stop.

Most clicking moments don’t include a visit to the ER in the middle of the night; most changes we make originate from more subtle origins, and sometimes the reasons behind the “click” aren’t immediately clear.

Have you ever experienced a “click” and although you recognized the change in yourself, you didn’t fully understand why it occurred? Were you curious enough to examine what led up to the clicking moment, or did you take the time to create a story for yourself that explains why you changed?

“Every now and then, I strike something that just goes click, you know, in my head. As Gertrude Stein used to say, it rings the bell, and I fell this is great.” – James Laughlin

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