When we say goodbye with a smile in the forest and our hearts are ripped by something, probably a stupid branch.

We smile and we wish those we love well,
and we mean it, with all of our hearts,

as we laugh goodbye,

but it doesn’t make our hearts not stutter with what’s being lost.

Because change is always about losing something. Of course the inverse too; we gain something with every new change we put ourselves through.

But like energy transfer, change shifts something from one place to another. Whether it’s just a physical change, which in some ways is the easiest, or whether it’s an emotional shift; one involving love, attention, time, support, all those things.

To not change is ridiculous. It’s stasis, and stasis is entropy, and the end result of entropy is the complete falling apart of everything.

So things must change. We must change, and we must allow those we love to change and to make changes;

no, not just allow, because those are not our decisions. To better phrase: we must not merely tolerate the changes those we love make…

…we must actively support and advocate and fight for them as they go after what’s important.

There is no such thing as maintaining the status quo with relationships. I have a long-held belief that the healthiest, strongest relationships involve two things:

1. Accepting who the other person is, amidst all eccentricities and foibles and quirks and frailties, and fully embracing who they are,

2. Challenging the other person to pursue their dreams, pushing them to become the best person they are capable of being and nudging, prodding, guiding, pulling, pushing them to accountability and success and not letting them settle for accepting an easy, change-free existence.

Because change happens. It happens in one of two ways:

1. We wait for it to happen.

2. We make it happen.

We’ve got to be willing and able to embrace and enthusiastically support those we love when they are willing to take the second choice. The world needs more people to make things happen, to fight for change and not just wait for it to happen around them.

So we fight for change, ideally for good changes, even when it hurts in the short term and maybe in the long. When it’s hard, when it hurts, when we hate it in the moment.

I say these words aloud and commit them to print to hold myself accountable to support those I love in what they do, regardless of how tough those changes are.

Maybe everything’ll turn out alright.

Or more likely, some things will go great and some things won’t.

But in the end, whether we have fought for or against change,

change happens.

Can we look at the person we care about in the eyes, can we look at ourselves in the mirror, and say:

I have fought for you and supported you in the changes you’ve made to the very greatest depth of my ability?

I want to be able to say yes.

If it’s not clear by this point, there are people in the photograph below that I am fond of.

There are changes happening, and they’re not my fave.

But I will fight for those I love, and I will hurl my support in the best way and to the greatest degree that I can.

In the end, I think life is quite a lot about a couple things:

1. the unique beauty you bring into the world in whatever form, discipline, or output you’re able and capable of doing, and

2. the relationships you build and the commitment you make to fighting for them and building up those around you, stronger and stronger.

That’s how we make the world better.

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Multi-generational Scandinavian family posing for a photograph in the forest