You Will Lose Everything

You will lose everything. Your money, your power, your fame, your success, perhaps even your memories. Your looks will go. Loved ones will die. Your body will fall apart. Everything that seems permanent is impermanent and will be smashed. Experience will gradually, or not so gradually, strip away everything it can strip away. Waking up means facing this reality and no longer turning away.

Whoever or whatever is in your life right now has not yet been taken away from you. Impermanence has already rendered everything and everyone around you so deeply holy and significant and worthy of your heartbreaking gratitude.

But right now, we stand on sacred and holy ground, for that which will be lost has not yet been lost, and realising this is the key to unspeakable joy.

Loss has already transfigured your life into an altar.

Jeff Foster


Dear Nick, Carl, Anne, Bob, Jerry, Jim, Lois, Terry, Wanda-full and especially Greg,

As I stand at that place between permanence and impermanence, I want to take this moment to express my love, my sadness and my gratitude for your presence in my life in case my words fail me when the time comes. Should your curiosity ever take you this way, know that you have been the centre and anchor of my emotional universe. I got to grow into my best self with all of you. I am touched, I am grateful and I will forever carry you with me. ❤