You don’t wait for someone to come change your life or save you. You don’t wait for someone to pick up your mess along the way. You do that yourself.… - Najwa Zebian

Here is an example I’m sure you can relate to on some level. Say you really liked someone who doesn’t like you back. Maybe you were in a relationship with this person and maybe not. The focus of your whole being might be on their unwillingness to give you love. If their love is the only source of love you see, you won’t see the love that might be coming to you from family, friends, colleagues, and even potential love interests. Because you’re not looking for that love. You’re not seeing it as a source of love. So, indirectly, you are blinding yourself to the love around you. You might believe you’re not worthy of love, and you’ve supported that belief with evidence from your past, plus evidence from your current situation. If that’s the case, your mind is going to search for every piece of evidence that further proves the story you believe about yourself, or what you make something that happened mean about you. You might see that story referred to as the “ego,” which is simply the Latin word for “I.” From the moment you wake up to the moment you fall asleep, your ego is looking for proof that reinforces what you believe about yourself. You walk around constantly trying to make everything mean something about you.

To embrace change is to understand that it is not having followers that makes you a leader. It is leading your life with decisions, responsibility, initiative, and autonomy. You can be a leader on your own and have people walk with you as they lead their own paths.

If they don't appreciate your presence, they may never recognize your absence.