While riding my bicycle at 4:30 this morning, I was reminded of how quickly change comes to our lives.

The route I take several times a month passes by an orange grove that sits right in the middle of the city. This is a welcome part of my ride, because by the time I get to this area I have worked up a sweat. The half-mile of my ride that passes the orange grove is usually 5 to 6° cooler than the rest of the route. In addition, there is the fresh smell of the leaves and sometimes, in the spring, the orange blossoms. But today I received a shock.

When I pedaled into the area of the orange grove heavy construction equipment sat behind the fence. A large swath of the trees had been ripped from along the roadway. As I continued to ride I thought that perhaps they were just trying to widen the street. But as I went further, I saw a larger area where dying trees had been uprooted, lying on their sides waiting to be taken to the dump. I rode away sadly knowing that I would miss this cool oasis on hot summer mornings.

But isn't that the way they change often comes into our life? We arrive at work having a plan for our day and an emergency pops up. We expect our utility bills to go down, but they go up. We think our exercise plan is working, then we discover that we have gained 5 pounds.

We have a plan for our education or retirement, then the economy goes sour. Maybe someone who was a pillar of sobriety, someone we looked up to at meetings, has relapsed. The changes go on and on.

I once read that the only thing we can count on in life is change. Nothing stays static. But if change is difficult for us there is something that we can do about it. We can determine that we will become more resilient. We will prepare ourselves mentally for the day-to-day changes that come in our lives. If we can steel ourselves to change then when change does occur it will not rock our world.

We can say "Oh, I expected that," when change comes into our lives. Whether the change is big or small, one of joy or one of sadness, we won't have to escape from the change with a drink or a drug. Instead, we can openly embrace it and realized that this is just the course of daily life.