Our present perspective is limiting.

It can also be deceptively harmful, at times. Yes, we’re using the best information currently available, operating under assumptions derived from the most up-to-date sensory input and internal processing. But that may mean nothing a year from now. It may mean nothing tomorrow.

A few minutes from now, something dramatic and amazing, or disruptive and cataclysmic, could happen. It could happen to any one of us individually, or to the world, our countries, our neighborhoods. Something could change which in turn changes everything else.

That something will change—at some scale—and that said change will change us in some way as a consequence, is a near-inevitability.

It’s possible to intentionally stagnate, of course, but personality stasis comes with its own costs. And doing so seldom amounts to anything more than a perception of stability, not true steadiness.

You can certainly claim that you haven’t changed, can do your best to ignore the ever-present shifting in the world around you, but that doesn’t mean you’ve actually managed to keep things static. To create the illusion of immovability from within an ever-moving vessel, in an ever-pitching ship, you have to, yourself, pitch and tilt, shift and shuffle. In some ways, then, trying to hold still, to experience the illusion of fixed stability, can require more effort than learning to roll with the waves; to adapt as adaptation is called for.

There are moments when I feel I’ve got myself, my life, pretty well together. I’ve built something that’s as close to ideal as I can imagine for my priorities, my needs and wants, my happiness.

But I know, even as I appreciate the view, that it’s only momentary thing. A patch of firm footing on an ever-shifting, forever-undulating path.

Today I may be complete, have control, be in command of my own destiny, but tomorrow it could all change. Not just as a consequence of external forces, because the many and powerful winds of fate, but due to of my own shifting, my own internal climate conditions roiling and rearranging in unpredictable ways.

What works for me today may not work for me tomorrow. The optimal everything for the temporal me—where I am now, who I am now—will not necessarily be of any value for where I’ll be next; for who I’ll become mere moments after I write these words.

This capricious reality can be frustrating. It can make all of our efforts seem meaningless. What’s the point of building a career, a lifestyle, a set of habits and rituals, a collection of relationships and skills, establishing a firm grip on our priorities and goals, if they’ll all just change tomorrow?

Is there no such thing as permanence? No payoffs earned for investments made?

The truth is none of these investments are worthless, and none of our experiences, though transitory, are either.

Each new stage, each new perceived moment in time, is predicated on those that came before. The richness or emptiness of one is part of what determines the composition of the next. And that’s true tomorrow and forever.

What this means is we have countless opportunities to do it better than last time, whatever “better” might mean for us, personally.

It also means we have infinite chances to transmogrify mistakes and flaws into successes and assets. The world in which we live, every moment of every day, is a growing, shifting, evolving thing. It only seems to hold still because we struggle to enforce permanence onto it. But there’s always motion. There’s momentum behind our every breath, our every word.

The solar system is moving at around 514,000 miles-per-hour within the Milky Way galaxy, and the Milky Way is moving an estimated 1.3 million miles-per-hour through the larger universe.

Any lack of movement we might feel is an illusion. You’re thousands of miles from where you were when you started reading this essay. Movement is what you do.

Movement does not imply growth, of course, and it’s certainly possible to step further from where we’d like to be rather than moving closer to our goals. Fortunately, though, one misstep, or even hundreds of them, don’t matter overmuch within the context of a lifetime spent walking.

There’s power in not just recognizing this, but embracing it. Utilizing it. Understanding that although we can’t know what will be best for the us of the future—for the people we will become tomorrow or a year from now—we can keep growing, keep moving, become increasingly aware of where and how we plant our feet.

With each passing moment, we get better at motion.

This essay was originally published in my newsletter.