Impermanence

I Learned A New Word…

I am the type of person who treats change like I treat salad — I avoid it as much as possible and when I can’t avoid it, I make a funny face while choking it down.

In a perfect world, most things in my life would remain constant. I am fine with eating the same cereal day after day and it doesn’t bother me to wear the same handful of shirts each week. If my life is a deck of cards, I have very few wildcards (& a bunch of aces — just ask my brother about my tennis game) .

But I am beginning to learn that things are always going to change – whether I like it or not.

Author Barbara Fredrickson put it great when she wrote:

Constant change the only constancy. Impermanence is the rule.”

I don’t know if I have ever see that word before…impermanence.

Defined as not lasting forever; not permanent, impermanence, comes from Eastern philosophy which states that things are in a constant state of flux.

Like Fredrickson explained, the only thing in life that is constant is that fact that nothing is constant. Our lives are filled with more wildcards than the Major League Baseball playoffs.

I might not have to like that, but I am starting to see that it is true and I shouldn’t try so hard to fight it…just like salad.

 

 

Photo credit: Pixabay