Just because everything is different doesn’t mean anything has changed. -Irene Peter

I was riding in the car with my friend and her four year old daughter recently when the car started making a screeching type sound.  Not being a car-savvy person, I could offer little to no assistance on the matter; however, my friend’s daughter knew just what to do. 

“Mommy, I know how to fix it.  Paint the car red.  Red cars are good.”

We laughed at her adorable precociousness, but really, don’t we often do that in our own lives?  We stick to the surface, slapping a fresh coat of paint over a problem, thinking that will fix everything when really the issue is deep-rooted and often requires a major shift in attitude, belief, patterns, and systems.  We rearrange our homes (and our lives) but don’t really change anything because the real work, the important work, is hard and takes time.  But well worth the effort, especially when over time we can look back and see a real, and lasting, difference in our lives.

And after all, while a new coat of red paint sure does look nice on your car, it loses a little something if you are looking at it from the window seat of the city bus.