Nobody storms the Bastille with their mouth full. 

If Louis XVI and Marie Antoinette had had the insight to change the tax system to give relief to the poor, they might have kept their heads. Instead they kept their comforts.

Revolutions can occur at any level; societal, corporate, family, or personal. The personal ones are, to me, the most fascinating.

Back in my social service days a woman far wiser than I used to say that the family member who was the most comfortable would be the one most resistant to change–even if changing would benefit the rest of the family.

The comfort of some, at the expense of the comfort of others, is the root cause of many personal revolutions. Our own storming of the Bastille if you will. 

I’m thinking of a friend’s marriage that ended twice. On the outside, her Bastille looked pretty comfortable; nice house, good incomes, three children. Remaining in the marriage however became an exceedingly uncomfortable situation. She planned and strategized to keep herself and her children safe and she left her husband. Then he successfully convinced her to return. A promise to quit drinking may have been on offer.

The very day she moved back in he celebrated her return by cracking open a case of beer. Before the sun went down she was once again making plans to leave. Within a few short months she left a second time and never looked back.

This was her personal storming of the Bastille.

I’m thinking of another friend who wasn’t uncomfortable enough to change until his Doctor said, “Stop drinking or die”. He drinks green tea now.

Change is hard. But sometimes change has to occur to restore personal comfort.

In the spring I signed off this blog for my summer break with the intention of writing some fiction; short stories and scenes that I would post here. I never wrote a one. A lack of creativity was making me feel adrift, mad at myself, and well… uncomfortable.

I’m not pretending that I’ve had a personal revolution on the scale of the examples above, but I’ve taken action to get myself back into serious creative mode. I did submit my first short story to the CBC contest and I’ve committed to entering a short story contest once a month for a Canadian website. I have support for this through cohorts of other writers who are in the same online study course as I am.

I stormed the Bastille in my mind. So far, it’s been worth it.

Keep your joy.

Anne Milne is an every Sunday blogger, unless it’s a holiday weekend. Or summertime. Facebook or email.