The Anatomy of CHANGE Dr. Seyiekhrielie Whiso, Kohima Science College, Jotsoma How many blasts of life-changing units can a person take in any given 12-month period? In an intensive psychological study called the Holmes-Rahe Stress Test researchers found that most humans cannot cope with a full blast of 300 units. Some of these units or stressors are losing a spouse (100 units), losing a marriage (73 units), losing a family member (63 units) and so on. Losing a job or being diagnosed with a terminal disease also ranked high. Change, though need not always be as negative as the events just listed, is most of the time painful and demands sacrifice. “Our Naga society needs to change,” “our attitude has to change,” “we need change in our offices,” are said so much that they are almost clichés now. The average Naga could give a threadbare anatomy of this word called CHANGE. But how many of us have the courage or the willingness or the imagination to affect change? If we need change it’s in this area which requires us to give up something for a greater cause – a cause beyond and above my ‘self.’ It could be my money that is ill-gotten, my wealth which came at the expense of the public, my job that I did not deserve, my undue promotion, my social status build on demagoguery, my power sourced from intimidation, my time and concern that have been quite selfish. These things are no doubt seemingly attractive, but come with severe side effects (look at history) and in the context of eternity the consequences should deter any discerning man. As I see it ‘change’ is a very useful word if you love preaching; it is also a popular byword during elections. (I am not saying this in the context of the pulpit alone.) Many of us who talk of changing the world are not quite ready or willing to change ourselves. But unfortunately change does not come in that order. Change is inevitable though if we want change. We Nagas have a penchant for the ‘instant,’ ‘readymade,’ ‘a little adjustment’, but true change comes slowly and painfully. As Swindoll puts it “true change comes in first gear not overdrive.” When a famous performer was congratulated on his overnight success he replied that his “overnight success” was because of many years of hard work. I like that. “Change is the only constant” a wise man said. If we are mentally too lazy or morally too scared or materially too greedy to chart the change we need to see we will be forced to accept the changes that we may not necessarily
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like. And you don’t have to be a prophet to know that we are in for a churning at this rate. I shall not bore you by listing what are the areas that need change in our society, not that I know all of them. (And changes in these areas are all-the-more urgent since we call ourselves Christians who are supposed to have all these virtues that make the society and living in it pleasant.) But whatever be the area or areas that require change, personally, I feel we need to go back to basics. Let me start with ME. It’s as easy as that. It’s as difficult as that. And here in this most private recess of my psyche I need to be brutally frank and brave and ask myself again what exactly my worldview is. A clear worldview will answer crucial questions like “Who is my master?” “What am I doing here?”, and “Where am I headed?” These questions are inevitable and imperative for they give meaning to our existence, and meaning is the only foundation for real and effective change: the realization that life is (actually) meaningful and sacred, and hence accountable, is the catalyst. Otherwise we will continue to be careless, amoral, indifferent, arrogant and dangerously ambitious. (It’s true that one may be able to skirt around these uncomfortable questions for a time but the consequences will always catch up.) I see that the Christian worldview, which should naturally be predominant in a Christian majority state like Nagaland, does not have its hold here – at least not as much as it should. In fact, many of us seem to be just drifting along (mis)guided by the ‘anything goes’ philosophy. But a good worldview will invariably change how we do things, treat fellow humans, use one’s chair, manage resources (even if no one is watching), and run our churches and her affiliated projects and missions. I think we as a society are doomed if the Vigilance department is our only hope and deterrent. I believe that true change has to start with and from the individual. This may not be a popular idea, but do we have a better alternative? For too long we have neglected the individual and placed too much importance on projects, programs and ideologies. And important as they are, I personally feel that we need to refocus a little and pay more attention to the individual. We Nagas have sometimes big concerns matched with even bigger egos, but we forget to pause to see the parameter of our influence. And though it’s difficult to admit that my area of influence could be rather small, and much smaller than my area of concern, (For more on this see Stephen Covey, 1996.) we need to start from there if we are serious about real change.
CHANGE Vibi Yhokha
My cousin tells me of changes in the village. At one point of time when they were kids, wrestling was a favorite activity among the people. Everyday boys gathered in an open space to wrestle and improve their skills, it was the most respectable sport back then. Every year competitions were held among young and old and prizes were distributed. It was every boy’s dream to become a wrestler one day. Now in my khel, not a single wrestler can be found and kids wrestling in the vicinity of the village would be a rare sight. An old lady from my village came to our house one day, selling her potatoes. I saw the tired look on her face as she told me “In today’s time, everything has to be bought with money.” It’s a common phrase many of our elders use to denote corruption in our society that meaning jobs too have to be bought today. As I think of her, I realized how hard she might have struggled with the changing times. Prices of food, clothes and all necessary commodities keep on skyrocketing with very little increase in the prices of the precious local organic vegetables she produces. She is one among thousands of victims affected by change.
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A New Dawn In Nagaland: A germinated squash in its mother creeper. If only planted on ground grows healthy, be it a squash, a plant, a man or a state. N. Moa Aier, Lerie, Kohima.
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May we find the will to
CHANGE Bokali Mughavi
Leaving something behind and replacing it with something else/something new could be termed “change.” That something could be a bad habit, a wrong attitude, a distorted perspective about ourselves, about things and also about other people. Every society needs change in order for its people to keep growing in every way. Naga people and our society is no exception. Before we see better roads, cleaner and better maintained offices, honest bureaucrats, repentant national workers and promise keeping politicians, as well as better informed public/citizens, we better examine what is the most important change that all Nagas’ need. A section of Naga population wants to see changed politicians and national workers; another section wants to see corrupted bureaucrats change even as the other section wants religious workers to be more committed to their Christian calling and ministry. I could quote many more examples of our people wanting others to change except themselves/ourselves. One Bible verse that would seem helpful to us Nagas at the moment would be the teaching of Jesus in Matthew 7:12 - So in everything, do to others what you would have them do to you, for this sums up the Law and the Prophets (also found in Luke 6:31). The one thing that every right thinking Nagas (men and women) want is change. Perhaps the reason we don’t see much, if not any breakthroughs or major changes as we want to see in our society is because we have not been able to do unto others as we want others to do to us. We want everyone else to change, but we do not want to change as individuals. The only way we could even hope for change to happen in our families, our neighborhood, our churches and our society is for us to be changed and be transformed individually. If our mindset is one of negativity, our hearts unrepentant, our attitude is one of superiority, our weapon of warfare are of retaliation and violence instead of forgiveness and divine love. However hard we try to change others with our persuasion of words, very well written arguments in the media, justification of our hurtful actions toward others (in our case against our own brothers and sisters) and the attitude that we are somehow superior to others in some ways, the change that we Nagas so long for will only elude us for many more decades to come. A transformed person/individual is one who is aware that growth comes only after going through a process of change which could sometimes involve a lot of pain and discomfort emotionally, mentally and even physically at times. Most times change will happen in our lives when we are willing to move out of our comfort zone and not be complacent. While it is true that instant change in our attitude is possible when the Holy Spirit of God convicts an individual of one’s sins, a wholesome and matured person is one who has gone through a process of being transformed and changed through different experiences that are not always pleasant or easy. Likewise a society needs to go through a process of change one step at a time. Simple things like not littering, being respectful of our neighbors, helping others and receiving help without receiving or giving bribes, being able to stand in a queque with patience, having basic driving manners, conserving water and energy, constant hunger to learn new things instead aping whatever we watch on TV and movies, etc., will all go a long way into creating a culture of respect, hard work and a cleaner Nagaland (in every sense of the word). The change we all want to see can only occur if we have hope that change is certainly possible. This hope can only be found if our attitude is one of willingness to change in whatever areas we need to change instead of waiting for others to change first. Perhaps a re-examining of our mindsets is in order as to why the change that we all desperately want in all areas have been eluding us for so long. May we all find the will and the commitment to change individually so we can be agents and instruments of change that we truly want to see in our beloved Nagaland.
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In 2008 I moved to Delhi for my graduation, and have been there for 4 years. Within that time as I travelled back and forth from Delhi to Nagaland, I had already seen tremendous changes. Buildings with post-modernist architecture, shopping malls, and mega-marts have become common sights. A generation that had the least idea of how to use the internet except for the privileged few now has access to internet in their mobile phones. Within a span of four years, I saw worried looks on the faces of many parents, people becoming busier than before, and individualism was slowly creeping into a very united community-based society. I now see that people are too busy investing in things that will only produce capital and more capital, that they have less time for their families. I felt fewer warm welcomes even in the happy homes in my village. Most annoying of all, I saw more Korean lookalikes rather than the simple innocent young Nagas. My 13 and 12 year old cousin sisters are so influenced by other foreign cultures that they know little about anything related to Nagaland. They only talk of designers like Chanel, Gucci and Prada, and are always mentioning celebrity gossip in their conversations as if those celebrities were their classmates. In Kohima, open spaces are limited for kids to run about, play and just enjoy the simple pleasures of life. The kids in my neighborhood have to go all the way to Science College, Jotsoma, to play basketball. Parents are usually seen scolding their kids not to play on the roads, but where else will they go to play. As a kid, I grew up looking for four leafed clovers with my friends for good luck, we played “lock and key”, ”five stones”, went hunting for wild strawberries and collecting flowers growing out in the wild, back then there was
space to run in the wild. Today, in Kohima town, every extra space has been used to build houses, lots of houses and leaving no space for trees, plants or flowers to grow in the wild. In the future our kids will have no idea of their parent’s childhood where we could run wild. Change is inevitable, one cannot defy change, but we need to understand what change is all about, what it is doing to us and how we all make the best of change. Looking at changes in our lives and our land, has this change made us better people? Does this change make us smarter? Have we become more advanced so that we can compete with the rest of the world? Have we become more humane? Have the so called development changes improved our living standards in any way or uplifted the lower strata in the society? Has our health improved? Have acquiring acres of land, building multi-storeyed houses made us more content and satisfied than before? Is it keeping our values, culture and the precious traditions alive? Does change keep the good things intact? If not then we need to “re-change” Change…… When I was a little girl, I had often wondered in my small world how I could change the world when I had nothing to offer, no money, no extra-ordinary talent, no charismatic inspiration, absolutely nothing . . . But now in retrospect, I have realized, you don’t have to be a world famous leader, a billionaire nor do you need charisma or extraordinary talent to change the world. It’s just the small and simple things we choose to do that changes our world in the long run. It’s what they say in sociology and Christianity, It’s the “parts” that enables the functioning of the whole. And change starts with an act as simple as gathering the courage to pick up a small piece of trash on the road.