One of the most important things that I ever took from my biology professor was the lecture he gave on the first day.

“If there is one thing I want you to learn from this class – it is that everything changes. Nothing stays the same. Whether it be the weather, the time of day, the relationships we have, and even ourselves. The universe is in a state of flux. And most importantly, we must learn to move and adapt to these changes, or we will never get anywhere.”

It is hard to notice these constant evolutions in our everyday lives; we are so caught up with the major constants that we seem to forget that nothing ever really stays the same for long.

You look at a flower bud at the end of winter, and by mid-Spring, it is in full bloom; you look at the stars at night and fail to recognize that they are aging much more rapidly than our eyes can perceive that, they too, are constantly changing.

Even when you look at things on a cellular level, our bodies are constantly at work to create more cells, replacing old ones, all while fighting off diseases and bacteria at rates which we cannot even comprehend.

Yet, every morning the sun comes up and every evening the sun goes back down, and they entire process repeats. It becomes systematic to us, like clockwork – but life is much more complex than that.

We need to look at our lives and the people we meet as constantly evolving. With each passing day, every single one of us is going through different experiences and continuously being shaped and molded by them. We are always learning new things, new lessons, perspectives, ways of going about things; all of them adding to the collage of who we are.

Once we can accept this fact, it allows us to be better relatives, friends, and significant others – far too often do you hear people say “What happened to you? You’ve changed!” – Well yeah! I certainly hope I have! I don’t want to be the same person I was five years ago; I want to be better, wiser, more experienced, kinder; I don’t want to stay the same. We need to see others in the same context. Our loved ones will inevitably change, and it’s important to learn to be okay with that. Of course, they will always have their fundamental personality, but apart from that, we need to embrace change.

No matter how hard we may try, change is simply inevitable; it is simply a byproduct of being alive. To allow ourselves to surrender to this, allows us to free ourselves to become better than who we are now, to become the people we are meant to be. Once we understand that, we are able to love with much more understanding and grace.

In the wise words of former President John F. Kennedy: “Change is the law of life. And those who look only to the past or present are certain to miss the future.”