What Youth deemed crystal, Age finds out was dew.
— Robert Browning
STILLNESS
— Robert Browning
STILLNESS
Some of what you were certain about turns out to have been temporary rather than solid. A conviction, a friendship, a plan can look cut and permanent while you are inside it, and then be gone by mid-morning. That is not evidence that you were foolish. You could not have known the difference yet.
Hold your current certainties a little more loosely, though not less warmly. Ask which of them you would still choose knowing they would not last, because a few would be worth every hour anyway. The rest you can set down without turning on the person you used to be.
Which certainty of your youth turned out to be temporary?
Free, with nothing to buy inside it.