Loss Is the Price of Attachment As Refusal to Change Is Self-Destruction
Riya Kumari | Dec 26, 2025, 16:30 IST
Gita
Image credit : AI
Change is often spoken about as a motivational idea, something to be accepted with grace and positivity. But real change does not arrive gently. It enters our lives through loss, disappointment, awakening, and quiet realizations we cannot unsee. It alters who we love, what we tolerate, and how we understand ourselves. This is why change is the only constant in life, not as a quote to be admired, but as a truth that reshapes us again and again.
Most people speak of change the way they speak of weather - something external, unfortunate, to be endured with small talk and patience. But change is not rain. It is erosion. It does not ask permission. It does not arrive politely. It reshapes you while you are busy calling yourself stable. What hurts is not that life changes. What hurts is that we are trained to believe we were meant to stay recognizable to ourselves. From childhood, we are praised for consistency - same dreams, same morals, same face, same loyalties. And yet life keeps proving a quieter, crueler truth: anything that lives must shed something to survive. Skin. Certainty. People. Versions of self that once felt sacred. Change is the only constant not because life is unreliable, but because growth is violent by nature. And violence, when slow and invisible, looks like time.
Identity Is Not a House, It Is a Shoreline
We are taught to build an identity as if it were a house - solid, defendable, permanent. Choose who you are. Cement it. Live inside it forever. But identity is not architecture. It is geography. A shoreline that looks the same only to those who never return after a storm. Every experience redraws you. Love removes one coastline. Betrayal carves another. Grief floods entire regions you didn’t know existed. And when you try to point to who you “used to be,” you are gesturing at land that is now underwater.
This is why people fear change. Not because it hurts, but because it proves that the self they protected so fiercely was never fixed to begin with. You were never meant to remain intact. You were meant to remain alive. And aliveness requires movement, even when movement feels like loss.
Time Does Not Heal, It Transforms
There is a lie we repeat because it sounds kind: time heals everything. It does not. Time is not a doctor. It is an alchemist. Pain does not disappear. It changes form. What once bled becomes a dull ache. What once screamed becomes silence. What once shattered you becomes the lens through which you now see everything else. The wound does not close, it deepens into wisdom, or bitterness, or caution, depending on how you carry it.
This is why change feels unfair. You don’t just lose people, places, or phases. You lose interpretations. You wake up one day and realize the meaning of an old memory has shifted. A love story becomes a lesson. A sacrifice becomes a warning. A dream becomes proof of who you were before you knew better. Time doesn’t spare you. It refines you. And refinement always costs something precious.
Attachment Is the Bargain We Make With Suffering
We cling because we believe holding tightly can freeze moments in place. A relationship. A role. A version of happiness that once worked. But attachment is not love. It is fear dressed as loyalty. Everything we grip too tightly begins to rot in our hands, not because it is wrong, but because it is no longer moving. Life demands circulation. When something stops evolving, it becomes a weight, not a refuge.
This is why change often arrives disguised as betrayal, failure, or loss. Not to punish you, but to loosen your grip. You were never meant to be faithful to comfort. You were meant to be faithful to truth. And truth keeps changing because you keep changing. The pain is not in letting go. The pain is in realizing how long you stayed after life had already moved on.
Meaning Is Not Found, It Is Rewritten
People search for meaning as if it is hidden somewhere, waiting to be discovered whole and intact. But meaning is not a buried treasure. It is a manuscript written and rewritten over years of living. What once felt meaningful may feel hollow later. What once seemed pointless may later reveal itself as necessary suffering. This is not confusion, it is maturity. Change does not erase meaning. It edits it. And the edits are ruthless.
They remove illusions. They cross out certainty. They leave margins stained with doubt and regret. But in doing so, they make the story truer. If your life still makes perfect sense to you, you have not lived deeply enough yet. Clarity comes not from answers, but from accepting that today’s meaning may not survive tomorrow’s awareness.
Stagnation Is A Kind Of Death And Life Refuses To Die Quietly
Every time you are forced to change, something in you is being spared from calcification. Every time your plans collapse, a more honest version of you is being invited forward. Every time you grieve who you used to be, you are standing at the threshold of who you are becoming. The tragedy is not that life changes. The tragedy is resisting it so long that you mistake growth for destruction. Change is not here to take life away from you. It is here to take away what no longer lets you live. And once you understand that, you stop asking why everything keeps changing. You start asking what this change is trying to save.
Identity Is Not a House, It Is a Shoreline
Journey
Image credit : Pexels
We are taught to build an identity as if it were a house - solid, defendable, permanent. Choose who you are. Cement it. Live inside it forever. But identity is not architecture. It is geography. A shoreline that looks the same only to those who never return after a storm. Every experience redraws you. Love removes one coastline. Betrayal carves another. Grief floods entire regions you didn’t know existed. And when you try to point to who you “used to be,” you are gesturing at land that is now underwater.
This is why people fear change. Not because it hurts, but because it proves that the self they protected so fiercely was never fixed to begin with. You were never meant to remain intact. You were meant to remain alive. And aliveness requires movement, even when movement feels like loss.
Time Does Not Heal, It Transforms
There is a lie we repeat because it sounds kind: time heals everything. It does not. Time is not a doctor. It is an alchemist. Pain does not disappear. It changes form. What once bled becomes a dull ache. What once screamed becomes silence. What once shattered you becomes the lens through which you now see everything else. The wound does not close, it deepens into wisdom, or bitterness, or caution, depending on how you carry it.
This is why change feels unfair. You don’t just lose people, places, or phases. You lose interpretations. You wake up one day and realize the meaning of an old memory has shifted. A love story becomes a lesson. A sacrifice becomes a warning. A dream becomes proof of who you were before you knew better. Time doesn’t spare you. It refines you. And refinement always costs something precious.
Attachment Is the Bargain We Make With Suffering
Fear
Image credit : Pexels
We cling because we believe holding tightly can freeze moments in place. A relationship. A role. A version of happiness that once worked. But attachment is not love. It is fear dressed as loyalty. Everything we grip too tightly begins to rot in our hands, not because it is wrong, but because it is no longer moving. Life demands circulation. When something stops evolving, it becomes a weight, not a refuge.
This is why change often arrives disguised as betrayal, failure, or loss. Not to punish you, but to loosen your grip. You were never meant to be faithful to comfort. You were meant to be faithful to truth. And truth keeps changing because you keep changing. The pain is not in letting go. The pain is in realizing how long you stayed after life had already moved on.
Meaning Is Not Found, It Is Rewritten
People search for meaning as if it is hidden somewhere, waiting to be discovered whole and intact. But meaning is not a buried treasure. It is a manuscript written and rewritten over years of living. What once felt meaningful may feel hollow later. What once seemed pointless may later reveal itself as necessary suffering. This is not confusion, it is maturity. Change does not erase meaning. It edits it. And the edits are ruthless.
They remove illusions. They cross out certainty. They leave margins stained with doubt and regret. But in doing so, they make the story truer. If your life still makes perfect sense to you, you have not lived deeply enough yet. Clarity comes not from answers, but from accepting that today’s meaning may not survive tomorrow’s awareness.
Stagnation Is A Kind Of Death And Life Refuses To Die Quietly
Every time you are forced to change, something in you is being spared from calcification. Every time your plans collapse, a more honest version of you is being invited forward. Every time you grieve who you used to be, you are standing at the threshold of who you are becoming. The tragedy is not that life changes. The tragedy is resisting it so long that you mistake growth for destruction. Change is not here to take life away from you. It is here to take away what no longer lets you live. And once you understand that, you stop asking why everything keeps changing. You start asking what this change is trying to save.