Real Change

"Beauty is how you feel inside, and it reflects in your eyes. It is not something physical." ~ Sophia Loren

Some years ago, the city of Atlanta (Georgia, USA) had a problem on its hands. A busy street on the southeast side of downtown had become quite notorious for crime, prostitution and drugs. Such a shame because Stewart Avenue was a functional and friendly area many years prior to that.

As time progressed and attitudes changed, this once nice place to live became a haven of trouble. Things got so bad, the city of Atlanta made the decision to clean things up. Their first step was to take Stewart Avenue and rename it Metropolitan Parkway. The name was chosen to highlight wonderful institutions of higher education that held the street as their address (Atlanta Metropolitan College and Atlanta Technical College).

There you have it, change the name and all is better right?

Not hardly, change takes a lot more work and effort.

This stretch of road still has many issues and change that needs to occur. It is something very similar to what needs to happen inside each of us. When we make a decision to correct a behavior or obstacle in our life, change has to happen on the inside. We can not simply change our hair-do, clothing style or name; we have to change our attitude within. It takes determined work to make real change in our life.

Think of it as a house which has developed a termite issue. You can repaint the walls inside and out, but if you don't take care of the actual problem inside the wall, there will be continued destruction. Old habits and old destructive friends have a way of sneaking back into our lives very much like a termite inside the walls of a house.

When you decide to make change inside, the choices will be tough. You will need to leave old friends behind. Even the National Football League here in the United States provides lessons for new rookie football players to help them with these changes. Some of the lessons are to disassociate with some of your old friends that may try to hold you back.

The same can be said for anything you do in changing your life.  There are those that wish to remain behind and will instinctively try to keep you down with them or cling to you like termites in the foundation of your house.

Real change requires more than a name change, more than a new coat of paint.

Real change requires effort to change what is inside of you.

Once you find and create real beauty within, real change will occur on the outside.

Stay inspired my friends.