An ice sculpture is melting from the minute it’s finished. People still line up to see it. Beauty doesn’t need to last.

Permanence is not the measure of whether something was worth doing. A thing that lasts an afternoon delivered everything it had in that afternoon, and adding years would not have improved the experience of standing there looking at it. People apply the opposite rule to themselves, refusing to start anything they cannot make permanent. That rule quietly eliminates almost everything good.

Make or do one thing this week with no chance of lasting. A meal, a night out, a drawing you give away. Do it properly anyway, and let it be over when it is over.