There is no past, no future, there is only this moment.
One of the most important pieces of wisdom I wish I had had as a mere 20 or 30 year old, is the broader perspective that only aging can provide for us. Now I find that a recent brain injury has provided a similar educational opportunity.
We all know the “stories” of our lives. We all know the specific meanings we have assigned to certain life experiences. What we don’t always accept and acknowledge is that these meaning can and do change over time.
One of the life lessons I have re-learned from my serious concussion this past May:
It may take a while, but life will always eventually make sense
My metaphor for this learning is the time it sometimes takes for me to remember a certain word for a common object or activity. Of course it is frustrating to forget simple words and meanings, but I feel reassured that they will come through eventually, because they always do.
The on and off confusion created by my concussion is a daily reminder that all the stories we tell ourselves, all of the meanings we assign to particular events in our lives, are only temporary stops along the way. We are free at any time to re-frame their meaning, to change them to match our present state of mind and level of learning.
That is one of the beauties of life itself; nothing is static, everything is changing at every moment. In these uncertain times, the Buddhist perspective reminds us:
To resist life’s inevitable impermanence is to suffer, and to accept change with compassion is to transcend suffering.
