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One of the most novel and beautiful parts of life is witnessing this spectacle of people changing.

The truth that so many changes happen to us in between the moments that we actually realize it. In between these moments of saying, “you’ve changed” or “I’ve changed”, when was the actual literal moment someone changed?

Seneca said,

“we do not suddenly fall on death, but advance towards it by slight degrees; we die every day. For every day a little of our life is taken from us”

In much the same way, we do not suddenly become changed, as we might like to think about it; we are changing in every moment.

Every miniscule event that we experience or observe, either enriches or deteriorates our minds.

Every fragment of emotion we feel—the joy, the suffering, and everything in between—shapes our heart.

Every ounce of food and drop of water that enters our body literally becomes our body.

This is really all to say why I choose to give the benefit of the doubt, to forgive, to show grace, to not give up on others, and to love; it is because I know that who you are now is not who you will be tomorrow. And who you are tomorrow is not who you will be the day after that. I don’t need to wait for the moment you’ve changed, as if it was a checkbox you suddenly ticked off as complete or a switch you flicked on or off, to believe in you, to show grace and kindness to you, to love you.

This hope is an invitation to fate—to embrace the fact that if things aren’t right at this very moment, because the world we live in constantly changes, and we constantly change, it may very well be that things will inch towards being right, day by day. It might be that any one of these days in the future that I return to you, be it next year, next week, tomorrow, or today, we can together wholeheartedly embrace the new reality that’s been given to us in that very moment.