The only truly consistent thing in our world is change. It changes, we change. And yet we find ourselves anchored to our attachments; as though holding on tightly to them will mean that they will stay the same. We know our efforts to deny change won’t keep things the same, but it can feel like a lifeline in the turmoil of unpredictability.

What is attachment? In short, and the Buddhist sense to which I refer to it, it is expectation. It is trying to control what is purely out of our control. It is expecting things to play out the way they always have done or the way we think it should go; the way people should act and the effects we think most suit the causes.

This is swimming against the current. Change is inevitable and yet we fight it; in the rip tide of a situation we did not predict, we make a grab for the waters we know. But to accept this as a part of life is to find some real peace. To see our frustrations as unhelpful attachments allows us to separate the actions and investment of energies that will make a difference from those that will not. Then, we can try to move forward constructively will a lightness in our chest, unburdened by our need to keep things the same.

Carmen x