Ending a Chapter: Clarity, Regret, and Unknowns

All chapters—even the best ones—eventually come to an end. Without it, the plot would never develop, the story would never evolve, and the characters could never be re-imagined in a different time and place.

We have a tendency to experience both profound clarity and acute regret as a chapter closes in our lives. Just as we start to grasp what we’re doing and why, the opportunity crumbles between our fingertips. Yet, it usually works the other way around.

Moreover, once something we have known starts to vanish from in front of us, only then, at it disappears, do we often see it in a new light. But alas, the moment has passed. As the door shuts, we suddenly yearn for more time. To cherish it one last time. To rewind and do it all again; differently. Thus, regret.

When it feels like you understand something—you’ve done this before and you know it intimately—it slowly starts to become boring. The chapter drags along and, since the initial hook, you’ve been able to predict where the story will lead. You want to start a new chapter.

Our ability to understand, conceptualise, and comprehend, and arrive at these conclusions quickly, often takes us away from the present. We know what now feels like. Even if it is enjoyable, it’s not unknown. We can distill the experience down into discrete, all-encompassing words.

Yet, everything we’ve ever known is both impermanent and a complete mystery. Every moment makes way to the next. Each chapter will end—sometimes at unforeseen times—giving us that critical moment of introspection as it moves into the past. With this introspection we frequently stumble upon the magic that we missed along the way. The pages that we flicked through, the time we wished away. We try to capture it. Piecing the fragments together to form a collage that suddenly take new meaning, new form.

But just as yearning for the future leaves us missing the magic in the present, so too does a longing for the past.

Absorb yourself fully in every page, and then leave it behind. Trust that the book is good. If the previous chapter was exciting, chances are that the next will be even more thrilling.

When a book ends, you can always go back and read it again. Relive it all. Find the nuance and joy that you missed out on during the first read.

But life is not a book. We won’t get to do it all again.

Be grateful for each and every moment. Be curious, unassuming, and immerse yourself like you will never get another opportunity.

Ending things comes with incredible perspective. Today may well be the last time you ever do something. Understand that every good chapter comes to a close and immerse yourself in each sentence like the end might just be over the page.