Just saw a post from someone on LinkedIn that said “Nothing is permanent, don’t stress too much about it.” On one hand, it’s nice-sounding advice. Situations change. But it’s also such a privileged statement, and comes from a place where someone doesn’t feel any actual existential threat to their lives that they can just ignore whatever.

Stress out. It’s fine. Sometimes shit is stressful, and it’s correct to stress out about it. And no amount of platitudes will reduce that stress because it’s real and potentially fatal if you ignore it.

Sometimes the only way out is through.

But yeah – the idea that “Nothing is permanent” and therefore okay assumes that your situation doesn’t end in permanent negative consequences, which would be lovely *if true*, but for most people it isn’t.

The reason this bugs me is that like a lot of platitudes, it doesn’t take people who don’t come from privileged backgrounds into account, and allows people to say things like, “Just relax, it’s not permanent,” to dismiss peoples’ real struggles.

I know it’s not the intent, but it is the consequence.