Nature around us is constantly in motion. Whether it is the gradual fade of soft summer leaves to crunchy fall ones, or a majestic sunset as day gives night a turn. Just look around you. Every second that passes brings more and more change.

Change isn't always a good thing.

Ask the troubled wife who's beloved and once devoted husband starts coming home later and later every night with new smells on him and a coldness in his eyes. Ask the white haired old man who sits alone in a retirement home with nothing but the feeling of abandonment to keep him company. Ask the family who's loved one went off to war and never came home. Ask them. They'll tell you.

Yes, sometimes change will leave us crumpled on the floor. It will tear us apart and leave us asking what we possibly have left. We are...well, changed.

So what do we do when this monster bears its fangs and abducts all that we hold dear? Do we retaliate with denial?
Anger?
Self pity?
Yes.

Often times we do. Healing hurts.

However, we hold the power in our hands to give this beast a taste of its own medicine. In our weary, shaking hands lies the answer.

We cry when it hurts and then we pick ourselves up and move with purpose. We throw ourselves obsessively into becoming a better something. Whether it is a better wife, a better parent, a better friend. We learn from what change has taken from us...but we continue to just keep giving. Not to bribe change to come back to our side, but to show change that it has not won. In fact, it has only brought out it's brother.

We change for the better.

Beauty. Choose to see it everywhere you look. Breathe it in. Then release it as you breathe out. What a wonder that would be. If we all stopped looking for the bad in ourselves and those around us. If we all woke up every morning with the steady determination of a child...one goal in mind. Today I will experience beauty. We would meditate on this as we sleepily arose and prepared for what the day would bring. I think the world would have hushed mornings.

Hush, hush, hush.

We would open our front doors to face the sun with star studded eyes.

Let's stop this game of pleasing each other. When did beauty become something that must be earned? Who says we aren't all entitled to it? Perhaps we did all posses it once upon a time.

Jealousy. Hatred. Self loathing. Lies of society.

These are the culprits. Slowly turning our eyes downwards as we avoid the reflection in the mirror. Rotting our opinions of not only ourselves but of everyone we come in contact with. The beauty we once carried within us begins its disappearing act.