Everything Changes

Nothing stays the same; everything changes. It's a simple truth that becomes more visceral with each passing year.

I believe it was the Buddha who came up with that one. He thought of it one day, while sitting around, doing nothing beneath the bodhi tree. Boredom will do that to a person.

When we're young, change arrives like a slow tide—barely perceptible and yet undeniable. A childhood summer can seem like a small eternity, each day filled with new discoveries and seemingly infinite hours. 

Like a River Flowing to the Sea

But as we enjoy more and more of those days, time begins to strangely accelerate, like a river that flows faster as it approaches the sea. The changes that once took decades now unfold in what feels like mere moments.

This speeding up isn't just perception—it's the mathematics of experience. When you're ten years old, a single year represents ten percent of your entire existence. At fifty, that same year is merely two percent of your life. Each additional year becomes a smaller proportion of the total, and so time seems to quicken. 

One day, almost suddenly, we find ourselves standing in a world that looks nothing like the one we remember.

Like a Favorite Cafe

Life is a bit like a favorite cafe, a familiar place with people and rituals that give our days their shape and meaning. It's more than a caffeine den; it's a reliable haven where we know the faces of every patron, the names of all the dogs that accompany them, and where the barista starts making your drink before you reach your table, near the windows but not too near the door.

It isn't just about the coffee or the faces or the wagging tails of the furry customers; it's about having a small corner of the world that remains safe, known, and understood while everything else shifts around you.

Then one day, after being away for a short while, you arrive to find new management has repainted the walls, replaced the furniture, and reorganized the entire space. The barista who knew your backstory doesn't work there anymore. The music is wrong. Your drink tastes slightly different. Even though you're sitting in the same physical location, the place you loved has vanished as completely as if it had been demolished.

Who We Become

We build our identities partly through external touchstones: the café where we met our best friend, the park bench where we read on Sunday mornings, the family member who always calls on our birthday, the job that gives our weeks their structure. We don't realize how much we lean on these reference points until they begin to shift.

The real challenge isn't acknowledging that change happens—intellectually, we all know this. The challenge is learning to live gracefully with that awareness, to build a self that isn't dependent on the world remaining frozen in place. 

Perhaps wisdom lies in loving things fully while holding them lightly, but it's easier said than practiced. It means savoring your favorite cafe, really tasting that perfectly made drink, really listening to the barista's stories, but recognizing that the beauty isn't just in the people and places, but in our capacity to develop meaningful connections wherever we are.

The old cafe earned its place in our hearts, and we honor it by allowing ourselves to miss it, to feel the full weight of its absence. But we also honor it by remembering that we created that magic together—the cafe with its atmosphere, and our attention to the people and relationships that developed.

Everything Changes

Nothing stays the same; everything changes. The river only flows in one direction, and we're traveling with it whether we resist or surrender. Perhaps the art of living well is learning to navigate that current with grace, grief, and an openness to whatever shore we're approaching next.

Sometimes putting words to melancholy doesn't cure it, but it can make it feel less solitary somehow. Though I imagine on some mornings, when you're feeling the weight of all that change, the philosophical perspective doesn't ease the longing for what was. Sometimes you just miss your old cafe and wish you could be there again, if only for an hour.