The season was summer.

I was sitting on the porch of the first home my husband and I bought enjoying a popsicle with my daughter. I saw a woman across the street with her small children, and encouraged by my toddler, invited them to come join us. I was surprised and delighted when she said yes. Those popsicles were the beginning of what became a great relationship between us and the girls at the blue house. As we stood in our backyard this past week, it felt all too symbolic finding ourselves, a few more children than we began with, enjoying what would be our last popsicles as neighbors.

I knew in some way those last popsicles were as sweet as the first ones we shared.

Much like the changes that happened after our first interaction, I know there are changes to come following their change of address. They moved to a different state, and like the season of summer is coming to an end, our season with the girls at the blue house has come to a profound close.

The season we have spent making sweet memories will surely last a lifetime; our children will never forget each other, and the relationships forged from this single one continue to expand. This is precisely the reason we met, to teach me this:

No single interaction is isolated within itself.

Each interaction inspires a series of expanding interactions.

Whether the change that takes place in a given interaction is singular or shared, its impact forever changes our existence, our perception of the world around us.

Sweet neighbor, you taught me to say hello. You inspired me that when you do, someone might just say it back. You taught me to ask for help (I still owe you a jar of honey). You inspired me to trust. You taught me to have fun. From first day walks to school, to “booing” each other and trick or treating at Halloween to leaving baking experiments for each other on the porch to birthdays, and backyard fun, you provided me the daily reminder that someone was there, looking out for the other one. You showed me what it meant to be a neighbor. Thanks to your local cosmopolitan nature, the relationships that have transpired as a result of knowing you continue to form. And while your absence is notable, your impact on our little community is too. I cannot be anywhere in town without hearing someone say they know someone else or about something in our community without knowing you…perhaps the very reason you were here, to connect us all.

Your change of address inspired my change of perspective.

“People come into your life for a reason, a season or a lifetime. When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person.”  –Unknown 

The author of this quote suggests that our ability to discern people’s role in our life allows us to understand how to best serve them and thus ourselves. This is such a widely used expression, and one I’ve always felt inspired by, but it wasn’t until recently I realized, these roles are not mutually exclusive. They are all three always inherently intertwined. This means, when someone crosses our path:

1. It is on purpose (a reason).

2. It is during a stage in our life (a season)

3. It will forever change/impact our continued walk down life’s path (a lifetime).

This discovery wasn’t as mind altering as the realization that the widely known expression may actually be more about change than it is about people.

The expression is about our mutual exchange, the experiences we impart, the impact we leave, the moments we share, and the ones we create together.

None of this exists in stagnation.

Change is the connector.

You see, human beings survive in relationship to each other. We belong in relationships. We must first establish a connection to ourselves, but if we have no one to share that connection with, there would be no way of expanding, no way to transform.

Change, then, is dependent on our ability to connect to others.

I remember learning just by mere observation, we forever affect wherever we place our attention. From a scientific standpoint, the cellular makeup of any living thing is altered by our attention to it…you can see where I’m going with this. If we are all walking compositions of cellular make-up, then we too are all left differently in relationship to each other depending on who crosses our path, who places their attention on us, and this exchange is transactional (it goes both ways). This strengthens the idea that people come into our life for a reason, a season, and a lifetime because ultimately, a person comes into our life or we pop into theirs to change each other, sometimes subtly and sometimes more blatantly, but always on purpose.

Our openness, our capacity for change allows for a deep understanding of people, and particularly for the impact each person is capable of leaving us with.

I think this makes the most sense regarding that second line, “When you figure out which one it is, you will know what to do for each person.”

You will know what change they were meant to provide for you: A change in thought, perspective, feeling, attitude, belief, and the list goes on. Knowing what to do for each person begins by understanding what each person is intended to bring about in you.

As we waved goodbye to the family from the blue house, we said hello to the idea of moving on ourselves. That open minded moment led us straight to an open house where we began exploring the possibility of expanding. Not long ago, I couldn’t have imagined moving away from my first home, and now I’m excited by the prospect of change.

Change is scary. Goodbyes are hard–so are hellos. We need change to grow, but we are creatures of habit.

Author Will Durant’s interpretation of a line posited by Aristotle from his collection on morality in, Nicomachean Ethics, is often used to describe human behavior:

“We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act, but a habit.”

If happiness is the byproduct of growth, and if growth requires change, then we may be best equipped for life when we make change a habit. To clarify:

Change = Growth = Happiness

So…change something!

Change your mind, change your attitude, change what you have for dinner, change your style, change your route, change your destination, change your sheets (that one was for fun), change your perspective, change your approach, change your routine, change your work out, change your schedule.

Change the direction of the stories you tell yourself. Let them work for you instead of against you. Let them be the reason you do something instead of the reason you don’t.

Change your reasoning. Change the part in your hair. Change your activities, change the channel.

Change your job if you’re unhappy (if you can’t do this, then change your attitude about it i.e. “Bloom where you are planted”) Change your surroundings if they don’t please you (one small change affects everything around it).

Change the company you keep when you find your energy taxed instead of charged.

Above all, change your focus. Put it the only place it matters—on yourself.

Your relationship with yourself influences the relationships you have with everyone else. You can’t know what to do for another if you don’t know what to do for yourself, and either way, you impact all you come into contact with. Change the reason you come across someone’s path from showing someone how not to live to inspiring the inverse.

Make room for growth. Make room for more. Make change a habit.