I reached up and rubbed my eyes. The glare from the screen stung them fiercely and I was developing an epic crick in my neck. I had redesigned this poster maybe 10 – 15 times. I put the final touches on it, printed it out, and took it to be approved. “It looks too sad,” she said to me with the calm demeanor of a Zen master.

“But the event is about medical professionals that need relief from stress and grief. I used this picture because I thought they would identify with a picture of a doctor who looks worn out.” I replied. “I understand that, but it still looks too sad.” That was all she had to say. I knew there was no point in arguing with her further. Once she made up her mind it wasn’t worth arguing about. So, I went back to my desk and started to work on a new revision.

Twice in my life I’ve had unwanted, seismic change forced on me. The first was when I had a breakdown aged 30; a breakdown that left me without a clue who I was or where I was, and that unravelled my patterns of thought so fundamentally that I was unable to understand the simplest conversations.

The second was when I was diagnosed with M.E./CFS in 2008, a chronic, incurable illness that’s with me right now. They were changes of the worst kind; unwanted, unwelcome and, at first glance, unacceptable.

Fathers can show their children how to change by pursuing their own emergence. But my dad did not know that we are emergent beings in an emergent universe. He didn’t know that our assignment in life is to grow and develop. To emerge. To change.

Dad never spoke about wanting to change anything about himself. He almost never spoke to me about wanting me to change. Dad never changed, so he didn’t give me a model for addressing my weaknesses, for turning personal difficulties into opportunities to learn, or for examining one’s life.