Everything Is Permanently Impermanent
Note: I’m writing in the first person here, using “I”; this is intentional so as not to push my “shoulds” on you. Know I’m writing for anyone who can relate, and also know, what works for me may not work for you.
It is not impermanence that makes us suffer. What makes us suffer is wanting things to be permanent, when they are not. - Thich Nhat Hanh
At the risk of sounding dramatic - if there is one thing I’ve learned in life, it’s “the only constant is change.” I say things like “I’ll never do X” and find myself, a few short months later, doing just what I thought I wouldn’t be doing. Feelings change. Life changes. Jobs change. It’s just the way it is.
Being flexible, agile, adaptable, and all of those things help me keep peace of mind. Not because I’m not attached to things. I am. But I know and trust I can survive. As I age, I keep adding experiences to my tool belt. Things that might only happen once or twice in a lifetime, but I tuck away the lessons nonetheless. As I age, my tool box is heavy, full of these random experiences, and feeling that helps me embrace uncertainty. I have no idea what I’m going to do, where I’m headed, how it’ll all turn out, and I have let go of the anxiety around it (for the most part, although some days it gets the better of me). I know that with the support of my family and friends, with my resilience and intuition, it’ll all be fine.
It might be hard. It might be uncomfortable. It might be exhausting. That’s all part of the process, adding tools / experiences to my tool belt for me to rely on as I continue experiencing.
For me, the concept of impermanence is most helpful when I feel in a rut. I have found that thinking, literally: “This will change” helps me get through it. Just like feeling excited or thrilled about something dissipates a bit over time, so will the feeling of boredom or anxiety. Reminding myself that it’s not a forever-state gives me the space to feel it and then move on.
As I say to myself when I’m running a short sprint: “I can do anything for 1 minute.” And then one minute at a time, I finish my workout. It sucks. It’s hard. But I can do it.
How does impermanence show up for you? What do you do with it?
