“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

Everyone is the protagonist in their own story. We go through life seeing everything through our own eyes, and we are forever caught up in our own stories. And the inescapable caveat is this: that all stories end, some just last longer than others.

As Michelle Cliff wrote, our lives are written in disappearing ink.

Human beings, far as we know, are the only creatures on this planet that are aware of their own finitude. That one day, the sun will rise without them. That death is a journey everyone must take.

At the same time, humanity has done remarkable things. It’s easy to look on the world and feel superior with our awareness and our power, but at times it is important realize the irony:

“An inconsequential pebble picked up on the side of the road has preceded us by anything up to four hundred million years, and its face will be brightened still further by rain that will fall here thousands of years after we have vanished. We might change things in the world, yet the most minimal, seemingly insignificant object outlasts us.” — John O’Donohue

Despite everything you are, a bothersome pebble you might fish out of your shoe will still be around ages after you’ve been buried — and probably getting stuck in other people’s shoes then, too.

Despite everything I’m capable of, the objects near my desk — a quartz, a carved soapstone, glass souvenirs from Japan, the cheap notebooks I bought off Amazon — will likely live longer than I will, just like all the things leftover from my grandparents. My grandfather’s belt, which I wear every day, is so well made it will probably outlast me, too, and I can’t help but wonder if someone else will wear it thereafter.

What things in your immediate environment will outlast you?

What things that seem irrelevant have preceded you by centuries?

Let that humble you as you go through life. Not belittle you, for you are capable of far more than any rock. But let it remind of your impermanence, of how many people came before you and how many countless more will follow after you are gone. The endless cycle.

For me, there’s something inspirational in the fact that, even though I can’t outlive a useless little rock, I can accomplish more in thirty years than it can accomplish in a million.

“Nothing in the world is permanent, and we’re foolish when we ask anything to last, but surely we’re still more foolish not to take delight in it while we have it.” — W. Somerset Maugham

Life is serious business, but it is also too short to take yourself too seriously. Find your balance, and live your story in a way that makes your life better for yourself and for those around you. While a rock may outlive us by eons, it lacks that vital power: to make the world a better place than it was before.

Let those good and courageous deeds be your immortal legacy. People don’t have to notice, but it’s there nonetheless.

And the cool thing is that since nothing lasts, everything changes, and what is life but change? You grow through change. Even as you live, who you are is impermanent from each moment to the next. The person you were ten years ago scarcely resembles who you are now. Good times may not last, but neither do bad times. Trials end. Wounds heal. Apples fall from a tree and rot, and new trees grow from the seeds. Doors close. New doors open. We’re only here for a short time, yet the nature of that transience gives life its wondrous transformative power.

Buried in the heart of it all is the perennial truth Thich Nhat Hanh noticed:

Thanks to impermanence, everything is possible.