This Too Shall Pass

There's a memory episode I recalled recently, I remember sitting on a veranda just after the full moon had disappeared, my mind racing through the same troubling thoughts for what felt like the thousandth time.

These troubling thoughts centered around a failed project amidst financial uncertainty, and relationships strained to breaking point. It had me convinced I was watching my carefully constructed life(in my head) crumble beyond repair.

The intangible heaviness I felt that night wasn't about what had happened, in terms of of expectations vs reality.

Looking back at it now, I think It was the suffocating belief that this was my new normal.

I think we all have these watershed moments where the narrative we've been telling ourselves about our lives gets completely upended because an unexpected series of life events unfolds in a relatively short amount of time.

For me, the turning point wasn't that dramatic, thankfully.

All it took was a conversation with my grandfather, who noticed my dull face and simply asked what was the cause of it.

I unwillingly talked out my spiraling thoughts and he ended up saying, "You know, I've lived long enough to see that nothing, good or bad, stays exactly as it is." when I was done talking.

He also added that the mind has a way of making temporary situations feel eternal, but time always proves this wrong.

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Ancient Wisdom, Universal Truth

What I didn't realize in those dark moments was this was one of the first times I was consciously experiencing something humans have grappled with throughout history.

The phrase "this too shall pass" has origins that stretch back centuries.

One of the most well-known versions comes from a Persian Sufi fable. In it, a powerful king asks his wise men to create a ring with an inscription that would make a happy person sad and a sad person happy.

After much deliberation, they present him with a ring inscribed with these four words: "This too shall pass."

Admittedly, I don't understand much on the part about making a happy person sad other than the presumption that it prevents them from grasping into fleeting emotions, even if they're perceived as "desirable".

But it seems like a perfect paradox, the same truth that tempers joy also soothes sorrow. Nothing, absolutely nothing, remains unchanged by time.

Hence, also the buddhist concept of impermanence—anicca—teaches that all phenomena are in constant flux, arising and passing away.

Attachment to the idea of permanence, Buddha taught, is the root of suffering.

As a student of ancient wisdom, it's a bit striking to me how these parallel ancient wisdom traditions have endured over the centuries.

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They represent hard-won human understanding, preserved and passed down precisely because they speak to something fundamentally true about our experience as a conscious beings aware of our own impermanence but at the same time striving to create meaning within it.

Living With Impermanence Now

In my view, the irony of our modern age is that unprecedented change occurring at dizzying speeds didn't really help much in embracing impermanence as a concept or a reality. We seem more resistant than ever to it.

Given that the modern age is rooted in the digital space to a sufficient degree, I think permanence has been viewed as a technological promise we can finally achieve.

Doesn't our digital culture promises permanence through photos that never fade or memories eternally preserved?

Nowadays, it has entered the realm of digital immortality, as in having an online presence that continues even after physical death.

Beneath this illusion, the truth of impermanence operates as it always has. With little change.

Technological platforms rise and fall, faster than before. Career paths that seemed secure become obsolete, almost overnight. Change is faster now, and impermanence is more noticeable too.

Consciously working with this reality, rather than against it, is the difference between suffering unnecessarily and flowing with life, for me.

Also, I've learned to ask myself during both difficult and joyful times: "How would I approach this moment differently if I truly accepted it would not last forever?"

The main point is removing the distortion of permanence that clouds our judgment and amplifies our fears can actually help us make decisions based on present reality as opposed to our continuous desperate attempts to control an uncontrollable future.


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