Nothing Is Permanent

Nothing is permanent. With time, everything changes — you change, the environment changes. The trees go through every season so nothing stays the same. Everything is constant and always moving. Today what we dislike is something we like at some other point in time.

As we get older, the aim is that we get wiser. But there are people I've never seen get wiser — instead they get worse as time goes by. We must know who we are and work on ourselves, constantly, and see how we can become better people. We can never be what somebody else wants us to be or live up to the expectations they have of us. We should just be real to ourselves and honour ourselves more than anything else. And to be honest with you, it's taken me a very, very, very long time to get there.

I recently went to an event. When I arrived, I thought that people I hadn't seen for a very long time must have got older and wiser and softer. That was my expectation — I don't know what I was thinking, but subconsciously I believed that was the case, because I had grown in different ways. Mentally, emotionally, spiritually. Life experiences had taught me a lot and I had taken every experience and worked at it.

But when I went to this event, I was quite taken aback. All these people had not grown. They had grown up, yes — but instead of growing wiser, they had got worse.

When I was hit with that realisation, it kind of grounded me. I didn't know how to handle it. Over time I sat with it, I processed it and I really tried to make peace with it. But I also had to protect my energy. I had to protect myself. And I decided to disconnect — and that was my way of honouring myself.