Many years ago I had a friend; I will call him Liam here. Now Liam was an alcoholic and he didn’t mind hopping into a few drugs – namely cocaine and anything else on offer. Liam was actually quite intelligent and a lovely bloke when the booze wasn’t around. He was a people’s person and with his wife he partied hard – more than any couple I knew. But as he got older it started to fall apart and we drifted apart as friends.

I met Liam recently and he has undergone an extraordinary transformation. He lost weight, looks in great physical shape, mentally sharp and has completely given up alcohol. How did he make such an extraordinary change in his life? Well he created a back problem that needed surgery and so he had to lie about for several months. And in that time he had nothing to do but work on a computer, analyse his life and get things sorted. It was like a big voice in his head saying CHANGE YOUR LIFE or else. This led to him starting a small website company, his back is healed and he is earning some good money. And isn’t it true that so often we create a crisis for ourselves so change is forced upon us. The trick is to recognise those things you need to change before the great metaphysical whack on the head.

It reminds me of what Ken Robinson said recently in a lecture – we don’t need reform in our society but to transform it to create lasting change. We could apply the same idea to those very challenging things in our own lives. Change you can believe in for sure.

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