Embracing impermanence, or at least accepting it with equanimity, may be one route to genuine happiness.
“Well, you must leave now, take what you need, you think will last
But whatever you wish to keep, you better grab it fast.”
– from the song “It’s All Over Now, Baby Blue” by Bob Dylan
Recently, I was struck by a wave of sentimentality. Nostalgia, that elusive siren, beckoned me back to my old school – to the casual observer an ugly ’60s Ballardian edifice of concrete, but to me a dream factory, teeming with memories and wonderment from yesteryear.
I hoped to unlock the mysterious door of time to my boyhood. As I drove towards the school, I imagined how I’d relive those years of scraped knees and boundless energy, chasing soccer balls, giggling in the corridors, getting into fights. The sadistic and also the kind teachers. I’d hear the echo of long-lost friends as I immersed myself in the bittersweet years of awakening adolescence.
But my school had disappeared!
In the blink of an eye (okay, 40 years), it had vanished. No trace at all. In its place stood the standard urban sprawl of modern housing. Of that too there will be, one day, no trace.
What once seemed forever had gone… forever.
It brought home to me, in a trivial but powerful way, how everything, one day, will be no more.
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Letting go, from womb to tomb
We all have to leave things behind. We all start life in the warm safety of the womb. But once we emerge into the chaos of the world, we can never go back.
We go to school but have to move on. We meet friends then lose touch. We lose or grow out of a favourite toy or favourite item of clothing. Loved ones die and we have to say goodbye.
Life, from womb to tomb, seems to be a continual process of having to grab fast what we think will last… and then finding that it doesn’t.
The long goodbye
As we age we have to let go of our energy, health, lovers, friends, dreams, and (often) physical autonomy. The way of life in society changes. Times change. Change is the only permanence.
The person staring back at us from the mirror alters, sometimes beyond all recognition! There is no shame in change.
And then along comes the greatest change of all.
Ultimately, we have to let go of ourselves as we die. The world we’ve inhabited slips from our persistent grasp. We become no more.
But some think differently.
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An immortal soul?
Some believe that birth itself is a death from a previous life and that death in this life is simply a doorway to another form of existence, the likes of which we cannot even imagine.
They believe that the soul is constant, eternal, even as the forms of the world inevitably rise and fall like will-o’-the-wisps. That the world is, in fact, a ‘fashioning instrument’ for the soul, which in some way needs the experiences on this earthly plane. That a life well lived can somehow enhance the quality of the soul in some mysterious way for its onward journey.
Paradoxically, embracing impermanence, or at least accepting it with equanimity, may be one route to genuine happiness.
The flow of mountains
Buddhists embrace (or try to) the impermanence of life. It is by letting go that we gain. After all, how can you take when your hands are already full?
Permanence is an illusion, because from our worm’s-eye view of the world things age slowly and imperceptibly for significant periods of what we call time.
But if we could see the flow of time sped up, we’d witness mountains, societies, and all living beings rise and fall like the fluid ebb and flow of waves at sea or bubbles on a lava flow.
So what are the emotional and psychological benefits of accepting the passing of earthly things and beings? And what happens if we feel we simply can’t let go?
Knowing when to let go and when to cling on
Acceptance of inevitable changes should never mean giving up or not fighting for what you believe in. We age, yes, but we can ‘fight it’ by keeping as fit and healthy as possible. Personal efforts can sometimes ‘stop the rot’ or reverse situations, even reinstate older and better ways of going about things.
Pure acceptance is pure passivity, as time has shaped into a cliché:
“God, grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.”1
And failure to adapt when circumstances change can damage our mental and physical health.
Holding on to what was
Witness the stalker who cannot accept the end of a relationship, or the ex-employee who just cannot come to terms with their job loss. The rejected lover can, in time, form a new relationship – just not that relationship. The now redundant worker can hopefully find a new job. Just not that job.
Rigidity, failure to let go and adapt, can mean more than just constantly reminiscing about a ‘perfect’ past.
Depression can certainly be fuelled by constant ruminative regret over loss. Anxiety (which of course can track alongside depression) centres on fear of loss of something in the future. Jealousy also fears loss: an enforced letting go of a loved one.
Acceptance, on the other hand, can make us both resilient and flexible as we adapt to change.
Acceptance and resilience
Acceptance of change is widely recognized as beneficial for mental, physical, and social health.2 Those of us who can ‘radically accept‘ circumstances tend to be more resilient and adapt faster.
For therapy clients, acceptance is often the first stage of moving on from the past so life can be lived more fully in the here and now.
Denial prevents us from problem solving precisely because it is a failure to accept what is. We cannot change anything until we see what needs to be changed.
Paradoxically, accepting the impermanence of life may help us live longer. Desperately worrying about inevitable change causes the body to become stressed, and chronic stress isn’t great for longevity.3
Change, in a sense, is life.
Who wants to live forever?
We might think we want to live forever, but the value of life is in its impermanence.
We love and live more poignantly because we understand that every person, tree, building, possession – everything there is, including The Earth and The Sun – has an expiry date.
Joy, happiness, achievement, and fulfilment can only exist when we appreciate that they have their counterparts and that nothing can be taken for granted.
In the words of Sir Richard Francis Burton:
“What is, is; what was, was; what is done is done.
But is it any the less full of fun?
Thy life is long, though ’twere but a minute;
There’s a lifetime of joy within it.”4
Uncommon Psychotherapy
Mark explores in depth his philosophy of psychotherapy in his flagship course ‘Uncommon Psychotherapy’. It’s included within Uncommon Practitioners’ TV, where you’ll also find 140+ videos of Mark working with clients, skills training videos, and more. Read about UPTV here.
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About Mark Tyrrell
Psychology is my passion. I've been a psychotherapist trainer since 1998, specializing in brief, solution focused approaches. I now teach practitioners all over the world via our online courses.
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Notes:
- From the Serenity Prayer, originally composed by Protestant theologian Reinhold Niebuhr in the 1930s
- See: Di Fabio, A., & Gori, A. (2016). Developing a new instrument for assessing acceptance of change. Frontiers in Psychology, 7:802. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2016.00802
- Tian, F., Shen, Q., Hu, Y., Ye, W., Valdimarsdóttir, U. A., Fang, F. (2022). Association of stress-related disorders with subsequent risk of all-cause and cause-specific mortality: A population-based and sibling-controlled cohort study. The Lancet, 18:100402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lanepe.2022.100402
- From Burton, R. F. (1880). The Kasidah of Haji Abdu El-Yezdi
