Things Change

We often find something we like. And we want to hold on to it. We want it to last forever.

But things change.

The question is, “How do we navigate these changes?” How do we focus on our growth, knowing we’re leaving some part of ourselves behind?

There’s no one answer. There are a million answers for a million different people. And any answer we embrace is provisional.

“A man’s maturity consists in having found again the seriousness one had as a child, at play.”

— Friedrich Nietzsche

I think we can get stuck. We often cling to “the way things are.”

As we get older, our ideas and beliefs tend to calcify. We resist changes. Especially changes that threaten our notion of “the way things are”.

The reasonable response is to doubt our most cherished beliefs. I’ve posted this quote before.

“The facts of life do not penetrate to the sphere in which our beliefs are cherished; they did not engender those beliefs, and they are powerless to destroy them…”

— Marcel Proust, A la researche du temps perdu

Our society tends to reward those who are CERTAIN.

None of us should be certain. We each should hold to some ideas more than others. We should examine our beliefs daily. Do our beliefs still hold up? Are they still useful?

Because things change, we should acknowledge the changes that do not sit easily with our preconceived notions. This can lead to useful action!