“The world we each have created is a process of our thinking. It cannot be changed without our thinking.”  — Albert Einstein.

Tolstoy once wrote that everyone thinks of changing the world, but no one thinks of changing himself. I think of changing myself all the time and have given up any notions of changing the world.

Change is my faith in many ways; it is essential to me. I suddenly realized that I was changing in so many critical ways at this point in my life when so many people were giving up and standing still. Change reveals people, especially me.

Maria says I am constantly changing, but I don’t always know it. I feel it right now.

I did not expect to undergo so much change at this point in my life. But then, I never expected to remarry after 35 years of marriage.

I am fortunate to stand on solid ground while my head buzzes with change; my wife and farm are as much a part of my life as my heart and toes.

I love this Rumi quote: “Yesterday, I was clever, so I wanted to change the world. Today I am wise, so I am changing myself.” That feels like me.

How liberating. I can change myself anytime, and I could use it.

I woke up this morning in shock and realized that I almost don’t know quite who I am right now; there is so much change in my life. I am once again stepping outside of my comfort zone; that’s when I change and grow and learn.

First, my health has come to the forefront of my life.

I am getting healthier by the day, which is odd at my age. I have more energy than I have had in several years; my mind and writing are sharp and meaningful; I love my blog and never miss writing books.

I’ve shed my drab Navy Blue farmer’s clothes for different clothes, new clothes, different shoes, a new hat, a new jacket, new pants. In the past months, I’ve radically altered my diet for the sake of my diabetes and my weight. I’m losing weight.

I’m somewhat embarrassed to say that I am receiving numerous queries about buying my new clothes. I don’t feel at ease answering these questions; I guess it’s a privacy/boundary thing. My things are mine; your things are yours.

My apnea mask has brought sleep to me for the first time in more years than I recall, like ever.

It seems like a miracle to me; I’ve never slept well in my whole life until last night.

It’s a different world to wake up to.

I routinely sleep for five and seven hours at a stretch with my Darth Vader mask, which I am getting used to. How could it be that I didn’t know that my heart was stopping 80 times an hour when I slept?

Now that my foot is healing, I’m ready to do some exercising again – walking up to my hill, going back to the gym. This particular health issue took months to heal and was a weight on both of us. It is lifted.

I’ve turned my photography upside down, buying a new Leica and trading my Canon and a dozen lenses to pay for it. It was an excellent and timely creative move for me. I’m learning something new every day.

It reminds me that you sometimes have to shake yourself or your life up to do creative work or any meaningful work. It’s never a straight line; I’m never quite there.

Yesterday, I  drove back from Vermont with Maria; we took her wool up there to be spun into yarn. When we got home, we both realized that this was the first time in many months that I didn’t fall asleep in the car for the entire ride.

There is something to be said for sleep at night.

I’ve also revised my diabetes treatment, studied carbs and sugar, adjusted my diet carefully, and my body has responded positively in several ways.

And then there are the people Maria calls my “other family,” the Amish up the hill, who have blessed me with their friendship and love. My head is spinning.

My life is also bounded by fixed points: Maria, Zinnia, Bud and Fate, the donkeys, the farm, my photography, friends, The Mansion, Bishop Maginn High School.

My head is spinning with change, but my soul is happy where it is.

The philosopher James Allen often quoted the aphorism, “As a man thinketh in his heart so is he.”

This, he said, not only embraces the whole of a person’s being but also the circumstances of his life. A man is literally what he thinks, his character being the complete sum of all his thoughts.

This is how I feel about change. I am the man I think I am; it isn’t too much more complicated than that for me.

I can change as much as I want or as little. No one else gets to define me.

“Man is made or unmade by himself,” Allen wrote,” in the armory of thought he forges the weapons by which he destroys himself; he also fashions the tools with which he builds for himself heavenly mansions of joy and strength and peace.”

So, it is up to me and what I want to be. Even if I can’t change the people or the world around me, I can change who I want to be and the people I choose to be around. I thought I was done with friends. But I seem to be making some.

Life is too short to waste my time with people who don’t respect, appreciate, and value others. Or me.

I think I’ve changed all that I want to change and all that I can change. I am old enough to know that my thoughts will be about the essential things to me, not those critical to others.

I want to spend my in a final burst of creativity, loving, and being with people who make me smile, laugh, and feel loved, and for whom I feel the same way.

And I fully expect to die in the arms of the beautiful human being who has chosen to share her life with me. There is no changing that. That alone makes it a life worth living.

Photo: Tina, An Amish Dog