STORY ONE: SEBASTIAN
Our fifth family member is a guinea pig named Sebastian. When we adopted him our kids hoped he would play tag, catch balls tossed to him, or find him among stuffed animals during a game of hide-and-seek. When the movie, “G-Force” came out, they were sure that Sebastian was a member of an elite group of guinea pigs on secret government missions.

But that was then. It wasn’t long before they realized that Sebastian’s favorite activities were eating, sleeping, and trying to run away when picked up (that’s kind of like tag… isn’t it!?!). They would take him out of his cage, place him on the floor and watch as he spent his entire time trying to get back INTO the cage. No matter where they placed him, Sebastian always found his way back to his cage.

This went on for months until one day… while out of his cage… he ran the other way… under the dining room table… away from his domain. Of course our family, short of dressing in lab coats, experimented and found that Sebastian had indeed gotten over his fear of being out of his cage… fear of change… fear of leaving his comfort zone. And just when all was going well… a hawk came down out of nowhere and carried Sebastian away! Just kidding! He’s safe and sound and looking buff from all his activity.

STORY TWO: MADISON ROSE
Then there’s our 8-year-old daughter Madison Rose. My wife and I decided it was time for us to move to a new house to cut down commute time and rejoin civilization. One night we gathered the kids and told them our plans. Our son Grayson took it pretty well, however Madison Rose cried for an hour and forty-five minutes! She pleaded not to move. She loved our house. She loved her room.

We took the kids with us house hunting and while Grayson found the good in every house, none met Madison Rose’s expectations. “This one’s too small… this one smells funny… this one has lousy carpets… this one has a weird person living next door (she might have been right on that one!). It was her way of saying, I don’t want to move!

Until…

…we came to this one house…

…and like Sebastian…

…she went in a totally different direction.

She walked into one of the bedrooms and said, “this is the room I want.” Then she picked out a location for her doll house. Then she saw that this house had a POOL IN THE BACK YARD!! Game over!

Madison Rose loved it. She went from not wanting to move… to… she couldn’t wait to be out of the old house. The first night in our new house she said, “This house feels right. Comfortable. Like we always lived here. I LOVE IT!”

CHANGE
Change is difficult. Isn’t it? Fear of the unknown. Fear of failure. Fear of leaving the comfortable in exchange for something that’s… well… not (at least at first)! But without change we’d stagnate, live dreary uneventful lives, and perhaps miss out on something better.

The best time to change? When you’re not forced to. Losing a job, running out of money, diagnosed with high blood pressure. Those are “forced change” situations. But perhaps the warning signs were there all long and a little bit of change could have prevented them. The company you worked for was laying off people in your department, but you felt safe because you had seniority. Spending $800 a month in cell phone usage, $300 a month in cable bills, and a $1000 a month in car loans may have contributed to financial crisis. And all those excuses of why you couldn’t exercise or eat right resulted in being overweight, and now having to take blood pressure medication.

Don’t wait for these forced changes to take place. Be on the look out for opportunities, take heed of the warning signs, and be proactive in your pursuit of positive change.

Gotta run. I think I see Madison Rose trying to teach Sebastian how to swim in the pool!