Everything I needed to know I learned from the MTA - Part 4

You are the variable in your own life.

Every train ride that I take seems to be different from the last one. Some days it feels longer. Some times it seems that the trip wears me out more and other days, I look up and I'm at my stop before I even realize it. As for my fellow straphangers, for the most part, they are actors playing roles. The roles remain the same and the people change, even though there are some that make repeat performances. My cast of characters always includes business people, students, pregnant women, panhandlers, tourists, weirdos, and other secondary roles. The train itself always stops at the same 25 stops, for the most part. So then why is every ride to work or back home so different from its predecessor? One reason: me. I change every day. My mood , my departure time, what I choose to do on my train ride, or even where I sit, can be different from day to day. As a result, each train rain holds a different experience in store for me.

In life, certain things remain constant. For some of us, it is a job. For others it's school. For even more still it may be family. Whatever it is, we will always be the changeable variable in our life's equation. If you are working at the same job and you feel like you're not going anywhere, something should be changed. Chances are, the job is not going do the changing. That leaves one option: the change must come from you. Whether you seek a new position in the company more aggressively, or you go back to school, or you just leave entirely, change must happen for progress to occur. Like Einstein once said, the very definition of insanity is "doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result". As we recognize that our train ride is dependent on us, so should we see how we also control the things in our life that we want to change. If things are to be different, we have to be the catalyst.