What We Can Learn From the Change of Seasons

The start of the new school year. The crackle of leaves underfoot. Bundling on crisp mornings and evenings. The shortening of days.

Autumn marks many endings and beginnings that flood my mind with memories of where I’ve been at this time throughout the years.

Walking the length of New York City after transferring to NYU. Learning that the energy and the people made me feel more alive than I ever knew possible.

Moving through the mixed emotions of closing the door on one career to build a dream.

Fighting back tears on first day sendoffs of preschool, elementary and now middle school.

In this season, change is the expectation and transition is the language. While I use my nostalgia to ground me and measure my progress, there’s a momentum I find in all that’s new. I seek it out, even hunger for it, more than any other time of year.

There’s an acceptance of the discomfort of change, knowledge that things may be hard for awhile, but we will figure it out. I will figure it out.

When I stand in this resolve, in the present moment, feeling the rotation of the earth, I wonder why at other times of the year I’m resistant to these shifts.

It reminds me of my friends in LA and other persistently warm climates who tell me, “I miss the change of seasons.” When I hear this statement mid-February, when I’m up to my ears in the elements and dying to pack up and move close to the equator—it’s hard to understand why anyone could say such a thing. But in this moment, swept up in the breeze of fall, I get it.

Universal permission to change.

To wind down projects and habits that may not have presented a natural end. An excuse to believe that something new is possible, that all these people starting fresh again know what they’re doing.

It’s a reminder that when we feel the resistance, we’re often building the case against ourselves, looking for the opinions and the data to convince us to remain in place.

And it’s an acknowledgement that at any time of year, we can give ourselves the permission to choose the opinions we want to believe and stack the data toward outcomes that will bring us energy. Knowing that whatever the result, we will learn—and for me—that’s the goal.