Life is a long series of losses. It's pretty much the only thing that is guaranteed in our existence. From moment to moment, year to year, we give up and leave behind former selves that we will never recover. We lose family, friends, relationsh.i.p.s, jobs, and communities. We lose beliefs, experiences, perspectives, and passions. And ultimately, we will one day lose our existence entirely.

If you think back to a hard time in your life, recognize that to get out of those hard times, you had to accept losses. You had to lose relationsh.i.p.s and pursuits, you had to lose a lot of meaning in order to create greater, healthier meaning. In that sense, all growth requires a degree of loss. And all loss incites further growth. The two must occur together.

People like to see growth as this euphoric, joyous thing. But it's not. Real change brings a mixture of emotions with it—a grief of what you've left behind along with a satisfaction at what you've become. A soft sadness mixed with a simple joy. That night, my wife and I continued walking. And soon, we came across a new restaurant, just opened, that had new things that we wanted to try, new experiences we were prepared to share.

We invited ourselves in.