Change is inevitable
Over the last few months I’ve found it helpful to repeat a Buddhist concept to myself, probably at least once a day and often in my journals, too:
Everything that has the capacity to arise will change and fade away.
This is helpful to me when unpleasant emotions seem to take hold - simply remembering that they will inevitably change and disappear. And they do. The same is true for any particular set of circumstances we might find ourselves in. Nothing stays the same.
The neat thing is that you don’t actually have to DO anything for this to happen. Sometimes I don’t want to try to make myself feel better! I can be a big baby, and you probably are too, sometimes. It doesn’t matter. My feelings will change, no matter what I do or don’t do.
Of course, we can all choose to be active and intentional, and try to direct change in the way we want it to go. That’s part of NOT being a big baby, aka, being an adult, at least most of the time.
Still, it’s both comforting and humbling (to me) to know that change is coming anyways. Nothing stays the same.
This has ended up sounding a bit pretentious as an intro to some news I want to share with my regular readers, so please forgive me. The news is this: later this month I’m going to retire Perfectly Cromulent and transition to a new newsletter focused on the practice of writing.
Perfectly Cromulent has been going strong for over three years, with 158 published posts. There’s lots more to be said about the world of self help and more I could say about my own experiments in trying to live a little better, a little less anxiously, in this trying world of ours. But it’s time for me to switch my focus and align my newsletter work with one of my big priorities for the year, writing a new book.
Over the next few weeks I’ll introduce the new newsletter in this space and share the first few posts. Those of you who think you’d like to follow me across this change in theme will be able to subscribe to the new publication once it’s up and running. All posts there will be free with no paid subscriptions to begin with.
Thank you for your support and for spending a little of your precious time reading this newsletter. More to come soon!
What I’m reading: Lit, by Mary Karr. A follow up memoir to her first two bestselling memoirs. She has a strong, unique voice that is inspiring me as I work on my memoir.
What I’m watching: I just finished the Netflix series The Crystal Cuckoo, a Spanish mini-series about a (fictional) mysterious set of disappearances that spans several decades.