I am changed.
It’s a very simple statement really, but not at all simplistic. Sometimes when a person becomes too comfortable in what they have and who they are, they become stagnant. They stop moving. They stop growing. And you cannot grow as long as you are stagnant.
So sometimes it is necessary for those comforts to be removed in order for progress to be made.
Think about it this way: wildfire renews a forest. It’s terrifying and destructive and it feels like the end of everything. But afterward, new growth emerges. Stronger. More robust. The forest needed that fire, even if it didn’t want it.
When our lives are “burned down” by loss, by trauma, by circumstances beyond our control, we can’t necessarily say “my life has been ruined.” At least, we shouldn’t. Because what if that’s not the right perspective?
What if the right perspective is: “I am changed”?
And hopefully, for the better.
I know that sounds almost absurdly optimistic when you’re standing in the ashes of what used to be your life. When something you’ve built for decades disappears overnight. When your identity gets stripped away and you’re left wondering who you even are anymore.
But here’s what I’ve learned: stagnation is comfortable. Stagnation is safe. Stagnation is also a slow death.
Growth, on the other hand, is painful. It’s disorienting. It requires you to let go of things you thought you needed. It forces you to become someone you weren’t sure you could be.
The wildfire doesn’t ask the forest for permission. It just burns. And the forest doesn’t get to choose whether it wants to be renewed. It just is.
We’re the same way, I think. Life doesn’t ask our permission before it burns down the comfortable structures we’ve built. It just does. And we’re left with a choice: do we see ourselves as ruined? Or do we see ourselves as changed?
I’m choosing changed.
Not because I’m particularly brave or enlightened. Not because I’ve figured out some secret to personal strength that everyone else is missing. But because the alternative (wallowing in what was lost, clinging to an identity that no longer exists) feels like a betrayal of everything I could still become.
There’s a grief in being changed, don’t get me wrong. You mourn the person you were. You mourn the life you had. You mourn the certainty and comfort and familiarity of it all.
But once you’ve done that mourning (and you have to do it, you can’t skip that part) you start to notice something interesting. You start to see possibilities you couldn’t see before. Paths that weren’t available when you were comfortable and stagnant.
The wildfire cleared space for new growth. Your personal wildfire did the same.
So yes, I am changed. My identity has shifted. My life looks different than it did 38 years ago, or even 38 days ago. Things I thought were permanent turned out to be temporary. Things I thought defined me turned out to be just… things.
And that’s okay.
Because change, even painful change, is still growth. And growth, even unwanted growth, is still good.
The forest doesn’t mourn its old trees forever. It celebrates its new ones. And maybe that’s what we’re supposed to do too.
Mourn what was. Yes.
But then? Look around at what’s emerging from the ashes and say: “I am changed. And hopefully, for the better.”
Because you are. Even if you can’t see it yet.
Join us in making the world a better place. You’ll be glad that you did.
Cheers, friends.