Everything Changes, and That’s the Freedom...

When you realize nothing lasts, you stop being afraid of what comes next.

𝘐𝘮𝘢𝘨𝘦: 𝘔𝘦 @ 𝘔𝘢𝘦 𝘠𝘢 𝘞𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭 𝘪𝘯 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘢𝘯𝘨 𝘔𝘢𝘪, 𝘰𝘯𝘦 𝘰𝘧 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘣𝘦𝘢𝘶𝘵𝘪𝘧𝘶𝘭 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘧𝘢𝘭𝘭𝘴 𝘪𝘯 𝘛𝘩𝘢𝘪𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥. 𝘚𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘥𝘪𝘯𝘨 280 𝘮𝘦𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘵𝘢𝘭𝘭, 𝘵𝘩𝘦 𝘸𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘤𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴 𝘥𝘰𝘸𝘯 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦 𝘢 𝘧𝘭𝘰𝘸𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘤𝘶𝘳𝘵𝘢𝘪𝘯, 𝘮𝘢𝘫𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘪𝘤 𝘢𝘯𝘥 𝘴𝘦𝘳𝘦𝘯𝘦.

I didn’t truly understand impermanence until I saw it.

In Buddhism, there are three deep truths about life.
They are called the Three Marks of Existence, or “Tilakkhana”.

Today, we’ll sit with the first one: Anicca — impermanence.

This means:
Everything that starts will end.
Everything that is born will fade.
Everything you feel, own, build, or become will one day change.

Life is like a river.

Always flowing. Never still.
Even when it seems calm, the water underneath is moving.
You can never step into the same water twice,
because by the time your foot touches it,
the old water has already passed.

Or a waterfall 👆
The water that falls today isn't the same as yesterday.
And yet, we call it the same waterfall.

Just like that, we cling to people, moments, feelings,
forgetting they are already changing as we hold them.

This is Anicca.
And when we see it clearly,
we stop trying to freeze the river.
We start learning how to float.

This isn’t something to fear.
It’s something to gently notice.

Not as a word. Not as a concept. But as something alive, moving quietly through everything I thought was solid.

It was during a meditation, somewhere deep into the silence. I can’t explain how it happened. I was simply watching.
Watching breath.
Watching thoughts.
Watching the changing textures of my mind.
And then, without warning, I saw it.

The arising. The dissolving. The beginning… and the end.

And for the first time in my life, I understood that nothing, no sensation, no feeling, no moment, was here to stay. It didn’t matter how strong the emotion was. How deep the joy. How sharp the fear. It all moved like clouds across the sky.

And that realization changed me.

You can agree with it intellectually, sure. You can say, “Everything changes, of course.” But that kind of knowing doesn’t help when you’re lying awake at 2 am, stomach tight, chest heavy, mind spinning in a hundred directions.

Anxiety doesn’t care what you believe. It cares where your attention lives. And mine, for most of my life, was always stuck on “what if.”

But when I saw Anicca that day, when I saw it clearly, not as a belief but as 𝘁𝗿𝘂𝘁𝗵, something inside me softened. The fear didn’t vanish. The stress didn’t magically disappear.

But now I could see it was just passing through.
Like wind through a field.
Like rain down a window.
There was no need to fight it. Only to let it move.

Anicca became my medicine. Every time my mind ran off with worry, I’d remember: This will change. Every time I felt overwhelmed, I’d pause and breathe into the truth I had once seen so clearly: Nothing stays. Nothing lasts. And therefore… nothing can trap you forever.

And what’s beautiful is, this realization doesn’t lead to despair—it leads to relief.

Because if everything changes, then pain is not permanent. If everything changes, then failure is not final. If everything changes, then even this anxious breath will give way to a calmer one, if I just stay present long enough to witness it.

I’ve started to live like this now. Moment by moment. Allowing things to come, and allowing them to go. It doesn’t make life easier. But it makes it lighter. It doesn’t remove the storm, but it reminds me I’m not the storm.

That’s the beauty of Anicca.

“All conditioned things are impermanent.
When one sees this with wisdom,
one turns away from suffering.”
— The Buddha

It takes the weight off your chest not by fixing your life, but by showing you that the story your mind tells is already dissolving. The panic, the rush, the pressure, they’re not wrong. They’re just not forever.

And in that, there’s peace.

A quiet kind of peace that doesn’t need the future to be perfect in order to breathe.

It just needs you to see that the moment you’re in… is already changing.

So why cling?
Why chase?
Why try so hard to hold something that never wanted to stay?

Just watch. Just breathe. Just trust in the river of things.

Because if you can really feel the truth of Anicca, not just know it, but feel it, then anxiety becomes less of a monster, and more of a wave.

One that rises.
And passes.
And leaves you, still here, still whole, still watching the sky.

Much love,
Sadhu 😌🙏🏼
Nick