Walk into any store and pick up an item. You will find two dates stamped on it, a beginning and an end. The date of manufacturing tells you when it came into being, and the expiration date serves as a final deadline. Some products spoil, while others are simply deemed unfit as their guarantee becomes void. We see this simple cycle of production and expiry in everything we consume. It is a fundamental rule of the material world. This brings us to ourselves. We humans all have

I saw a monarch butterfly on a hibiscus flower this morning, its wings like a stained-glass window in the sun. For the longest time, I believed personal change was about addition. I thought it was about acquiring a new skill or a better habit, that I could just staple wings onto my old self and somehow learn to fly.