Today’s circumstances won’t last forever.

Who we are, the way we live, the things we do—they’re all impermanent.

The transient nature of everything can be panic-inducing, but there’s power in temporariness, even when it’s not always obvious or the first place our minds go when we consider the tempestuous shifts that endlessly upend the fixed and familiar.

Every change introduces an endless number of novel opportunities that we hadn’t previously considered, been aware of, or had access to.

It can be unpleasant to think about how our lives, our habits, our expectations and sense of norms might change—perhaps soon, perhaps in the distant future, but almost certainly eventually, and perhaps dramatically.

It can be valuable to remind ourself of this transience, though, so that we’re not caught entirely off-guard when the ground starts to shift and the structural elements of our lives begin to rearrange themselves.

It’s understandable to feel a sense of security in implied permanence, but malleability is arguably the more reliable attribute, as it allows for bending rather than breaking; adapting, rather than clinging to a familiar set of circumstances that no longer exist.

I try to remind myself that change is natural, growth is natural, birth and death are natural: they’re all part of the same system.

If nothing ever changed, nothing would ever get better.

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