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Lately, I’ve been sitting with a simple truth that doesn’t feel simple at all:

Everything is changing.

And the longer we live, the more we feel it—because we remember how it used to be.

Right now, the world seems to be shifting so quickly it can feel like the ground beneath our feet is dissolving.

Politics has gone sideways.

AI is rewriting rules of work, identity—even creativity.

Health isn’t just treating symptoms anymore; it’s editing our code.

And under all of it, climate change is forcing a reckoning.

It can be disorienting. 

Most of what we were taught to hold onto, what to expect, how to plan, who to trust, is no longer a reliable anchor.

The stories that used to make us feel safe don’t hold up the way they used to.

So what do we do when the structures start to fall apart?

If you're like most people, the first impulse is to grab onto the crumbling structure, to rebuild. Patch the hole. Reinforce the wall. Get things “back to normal.” 

You see, humans aren’t exactly programmed to like change.

But maybe… we’re not supposed to go back.

Maybe it’s meant to break.

Maybe the wisdom is in letting it fall apart.

I’ve watched this play out in my own life.

During COVID, my business started to unravel.

I threw everything I had into holding it together, but all it did was drag me through the fire.

Eventually, I had to let it go.

And on the other side of that collapse, something new emerged. 

At the time, it felt like failure. But looking back, it needed to be something momentous to forge a new direction. To force me onto a new path.

It showed me that sometimes the path to a deeper life doesn’t come from control…

It comes from surrender.

Not apathy. Not giving up.

But a conscious choice to let go—even without knowing what was coming next.

Ever heard of anicca—Buddha’s reminder that nothing lasts. 

As Heraclitus put it, the only constant is change.

So when everything’s changing, we need somewhere to stand.

That place isn’t “out there.”

It’s inside. 

The quiet part of us that always remains unchanged.

The part that remembers: we’ve been through this before.

We’ve survived atrocities, as individuals, as communities, as a species, we’ve faced overwhelming change before.

And sometimes, something beautiful rose out of the rubble.

But only if we didn’t harden. Only if we didn’t close off in fear.

Because fear pulls us into separation.

And in separation, we lose access to the very thing that can carry us through.

I heard an elder once speak about a different vision for humanity.

Not one of sameness, but of purposeful difference.

He said:

“We were made different on purpose, so that we could find our way back to each other.”

That’s the invitation now.

Not to fight to be right or cling to the past.

To let this chaos become a portal to something deeper: real trust.

So if you’re wondering what to do in the middle of all this…

It’s to find the part within you that never changes—the part that recognized itself in every reflection, even as the face in the mirror, looking back, shifts over time.

The same part that gives you the ability, after waking from a dream where everything was different, to say, ‘I’ dreamt.

Relax, let go, release the emotions, and watch them pass.

Find it in the breath.

There's a consistency that’s always there—unmoved by what changes around you and untouched by what you feel inside.

From here you can ask yourself: what can I let fall apart?

And from that letting go, a new rhythm emerges—one that carries you in a new direction.

Looking back, can you see how much of your life is better because something that felt “bad” had to happen first?

The lost job. The breakup. The failed project. The moment your identity cracked open.

Let it remind you: we don’t always recognize what’s good in the moment. But life has a way of revealing it, eventually.

We might be in a collective moment of undoing.

Messy. Raw. Uneasy.

But maybe that’s the point: from the collapse, the new rhythm begins—one we get to choose.

We choose the beat.

Maybe we’re not broken.

Maybe we’re breaking open.

And maybe… just maybe… that’s how we find each other again.

With love,

Paul 

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