A Letter to the Man Who Fears He Can’t Change

Brother,

I know the weight of waking up to the same version of yourself you swore you were done with. Of making plans, setting new standards, drawing lines—and then watching yourself cross them again.

It can start to feel permanent. Like this is who you are. Like no matter what you try, you’ll drift back to old habits, old ruts, old ways of thinking.

But that’s not truth. That’s just fear wearing the voice of finality.

Change is real. But it’s not loud. And it’s not fast.

It’s made in small refusals. In the pause before the reaction. In the moment you do something different—even if it’s only slightly different—than what you would’ve done before. You may not notice it while it’s happening. But over time, the shape of your life shifts. The ruts don’t run as deep.

You are not the same man you were five years ago. And you are certainly not the boy you once were, many years before that. You’ve changed before—just not all at once. Why should it be different now?

And look around: everything in Nature changes. Trees grow, then drop their leaves. Mountains rise, and crumble. What is born decays, and what decays returns to the soil to grow again. This is not a threat. It’s a gift. It means you are not fixed. You are free to amend, to grow, to become.

The Path doesn’t demand that you leap. It asks that you keep walking. It asks that you stop using your past to predict your future. You’ve already proved you can outgrow things. Now keep going.

The fear says you’ll never change.

But Reason says you already have.

—Your Brother on the Path