If love is to teach you something, let it be that anything can be fickle. That at any moment something important to you can be as ordinary as a nickel on the street. That any illusion can be shattered and any curtain can fall. That someday you might look back at this thing you worshipped from beneath its pedestal like it’s a derelict.

If time is to teach you something, let it be that all things end. All great moments in our lives rise like an untouchable empire, and fall like one too. Whether it be in a blaze of glory or a spontaneous wildfire, all things have a natural conclusion. And life is much sweeter when you see it coming and you see it off.

If sadness is to teach you something, let it be that it’s only in the valleys that we know which peaks to climb. Rain may blot out the sun but it also cleanses the earth and once you’re ready to set out again, paths have been cleared for you. Sadness has a way of blowing the dust off the parts of yourself that you compartmentalized in happiness. It’s often not a roadblock, but a crossroads. Use it as momentum to explore a new direction.

If power is to teach you something, let it be that every spot we occupy was ceded to us by something and it must be ceded again. Nothing worthwhile in life must be fought for with our entire life force. We come to power at moments when we’re meant to reign and all reigns end. To deny that power must be accompanied by vulnerability is to deny the great balance of life.

If the unknown is to teach you something, let it be this: nothing is truly off the table. If you have imagined it, perhaps it shall be. But because you imagined it does not make it so. It is essential to navigate the world with a sense of possibility but never with the arrogance of assuming to have it figured out. Humility is the unspoken invitation that welcomes all happenstances into our waiting arms.