"It will all pass" is a comfort that falls short

At a funeral, an acquaintance patted my shoulder and said: "Well, it will all pass eventually, my friend."

I nodded. Said thank you.

And inside me, something quietly closed.

Not because they were wrong. They were right — everything does eventually pass. It's just that after those words, I knew the conversation had ended, and the burden I was carrying remained exactly as heavy, with the added awkwardness of no longer feeling comfortable speaking of it.

It took me a long time to understand why a truthful statement could be so completely unhelpful.

Why hearing that phrase still leaves an empty feeling

Let's dissect that sentence to see what it actually communicates.

"It will all pass eventually" — the subject is your pain. The predicate is will end. And hidden behind it lies an unstated promise: once it ends, everything will be fine.

Those three pieces assemble into a rather rigid message: what you are enduring is temporary, so it isn't as monumental as you think, and therefore you can tone down your reaction.

The speaker doesn't intend this. They genuinely care. But the structure of the phrase does one specific thing: it downplays the weight of what is currently happening.

And someone who is hurting doesn't need anyone to downplay their pain. They need someone to acknowledge that it is heavy.

There is another, subtler aspect. That phrase places all focus on the future — a future you cannot even envision at that moment. It throws you a lifesaver on the far shore, while you are struggling to breathe in the middle of the river.

"How long until it passes?" — I asked that silently, and of course no one had an answer. No one knows. So that comforting phrase is, in the end, a promise the speaker has no power to keep.

What impermanence says — and what it does not say

This is where I spent the most time reflecting, and it reshaped how I view the entire topic.

"It will all pass" is often offered as an expression of impermanence. But it only takes one single half.

Impermanence does not merely say that bad things will pass. It says that nothing stands still — including what is currently good.

The second half is almost always left behind, because it isn't comforting. It says: this beautiful afternoon will also slip away. The healthy person sitting in front of you is also changing day by day. The happiness you just rediscovered has no guarantee.

It sounds cold. But it is precisely that cold half that gives meaning to the other.

Because if everything changes, then your pain is not a life sentence — yes, that is the familiar half. But simultaneously, it also means you are in pain because you once possessed something real, something so real that losing it brought you to your knees.

Pain, as it turns out, is the receipt of having truly cared.

Someone who attaches to nothing loses nothing. But that is not peace — that is having never truly lived.

⚠️ And here is a point I want to state clearly, because it is easily misunderstood: understanding impermanence is not about caring less to avoid suffering. That interpretation sounds spiritual, but it is actually avoidance wearing a beautiful coat.

Impermanence does not teach us to step back. It simply says: what you have right now is present right now.

What can be set down is not the person, but the blueprint we drew for them — a topic I wrote about separately.

Truthfully, I still struggle to live out this truth gracefully. There are evenings I still lie in bed calculating how much longer this will drag on, the exact kind of calculation I just wrote was useless. Knowing a truth and living it are two very different journeys, and the second one is much longer.

If impermanence promises nothing, what can it offer?

Just one thing, but very concrete: it frees you from feeling as though today is forever.

Not "tomorrow will be better". Simply "today is not the final draft".

The distinction sounds small, but when you are in the middle of it, it is immense. The promise "it will get better" sets a deadline — and every morning you wake up not yet better, you feel behind schedule.

Whereas "today is not the final draft" sets no deadline at all. It simply opens a door without forcing you to step through it today.

Sharing the same perspective with healing is not fixing: what actually holds a person up is not a promise of the finish line, but removing the invisible deadline.

Words you can say to someone in pain

Practical advice. If this week you sit beside someone who has experienced loss and don't know what to say, these three approaches work immediately.

One — speak of the present, not the future.

Instead of "it will all pass", try:

"It must feel so heavy right now."

Seven words. Promising nothing. Measuring nothing for them. Simply acknowledging what is present.

You will find it uncomfortably brief, and your urge will be to append a positive phrase to round it out. Resist that urge. That rounding out is for your own comfort, not theirs.

Two — drop the word "but", use a period.

❌ "It's sad, but you have to keep living."

✅ "If you're sad, just be sad. And whenever you feel like eating, we'll make something."

The word but erases what came before. A period lets both truths coexist — the same way as writing about yourself.

Three — offer a specific, small action instead of a general offer.

"Call me if you need anything" sounds warm, but it pushes the mental burden of figuring out what is needed back onto the person who can barely think.

Replace it with:

"Tomorrow afternoon I'll drop off some food by your door, no need to come out."

Specific. Timed. And providing a clear way for them to decline without explaining.

And if the person in pain is you, and tonight no one has said the right words yet, tears are permitted to fall without waiting for anyone's permission.

The shortest sentence

There is a short sentence I learned from a friend, back when I was in my darkest period.

They didn't say it would pass. Didn't say stay strong. Said nothing about the future.

They simply texted: "I know."

Two words. Opening nothing, closing nothing.

And I read those two words over and over all through that evening.

Impermanence will do its work without needing anyone to remind it. Everything changes, including what causes you pain, including what brings you joy.

Our role, when sitting beside someone, is much smaller: don't rush to push them toward the day when it has all passed.

Sit here with them, on this day that has not yet passed.

This article was created with AI assistance.