Embrace Change

A Buddhist monk once told me: “All I have learned in the twenty years that I have been a monk I can sum up in one sentence: All that arises passes away. This I know.” What he meant, of course, was this: I have learned to offer no resistance to what is; I have learned to allow the present moment to be and to accept the impermanent nature of all things and conditions. Thus I have found peace.”
-Eckhart Tolle, The Power of Now

From time to time we may find ourselves thinking about “the good ol’ days” wishing we could return to the past, when everything was better. Of course, that usually isn’t actually the case since we have a tendency to gloss over anything we didn’t like, but that’s not the point of the above passage. Rather, the point is things never stay the same, and that should bring great comfort. It does not matter what it is, something always changes, be it the people, the place, or even simply our perceptions.

The sooner we realize this, that change is a ubiquitous reality that affects everything, the sooner we can come to terms with this moment. And that’s all that we ever really have, is this moment. Senior Year of high school, complete with football games to attend, freshmen to haze, and a general feeling of invincibility will never come back. (Some of you are thinking, “Thank God.”) That brand new car you bought will never look as good as it did on the lot and never smell as good, either. Embrace this.  Don’t spend time wishing for the good ol’ days to return, live them!

By the same token, if you are finding yourself in a bit of a rough patch, that too will change. Soon everything will swing back in your favor and you will feel just fine. But only if you let it. In order to improve your life situation, you have to let go and allow the change to happen. This is true whether you are happy now or not. Many people have devoted an immeasurable amount of energy attempting to keep everything neatly in a box, tucked away hoping to preserve the status quo. It won’t, and that’s the best part! Who knows what tomorrow will bring?

Let go of your desire to control. When we try to resist change, what we are really doing is attempting to control the uncontrollable. Let go. Embrace the fact that everything tomorrow will be different, whether just a little or a lot. Embrace what comes to you, whatever it may be, with the knowledge that permanence is an illusion. Wasting our time chasing an illusion is a bit silly, don’t you think?