Finding Gratitude in Change

Thirteen Years in Fast-Forward

I met my wife one month into freshman year of college. It took me a year to convince her to date me, but she eventually said yes. That was thirteen years ago, and she’s been my best friend ever since.

In those thirteen years, we’ve already lived many lives together. We went from kids giddily accepting our first job offers and moving into our first apartment…to, this past summer: the company I work at going public, buying our first home, moving to the suburbs, and preparing to welcome our baby girl in January. It’s been a highlight reel of a few months. I know I’ll look back on this chapter and wonder how many big moments happened so fast.

But even good chapters can be disorienting. Sometimes, when friends and family ask about how things are going with all the good news…I would feel like I’m narrating someone else’s story. Like my life was happening in fast-forward, while I tried to keep up. Amidst all the joy, I was quietly trying to understand the change and who I was becoming. Taking on an exciting, but demanding new role in AI at work. Leaving the city for the suburbs. Letting go of old routines to build new ones. Preparing for fatherhood. Learning how to support my wife through pregnancy.

The Discomfort Beneath the Good

As I navigated this change, I noticed something strange happening in my head. I wasn’t unhappy, but I wasn’t fully feeling the happiness of it all either.

Some people deal with rapid change — good or bad — by embracing it head-on. They say, “rain or shine, life is life,” and keep moving forward. I sometimes envy that mindset. But I know I’m not one of those people.

As an old manager said to me once when giving me parenting advice, “you’re a pretty cerebral dude…” and then: “don’t overthink it.” He was right on both counts.

You see, I am a pretty cerebral dude. I tend to analyze change instead of just moving through it. So when life suddenly became a cascade of new beginnings, my mind went into overdrive. I was trying to make sense of it all, and in trying so hard to understand the change, I stopped feeling it.

The reality was that some old pillars of my identity were quietly toppling over. With the move, I stopped going to my regular gym. I didn’t have my morning walks with my dog. My familiar workspace was gone. My city, my routines, the small rituals that used to ground me—all of them had shifted.

I was in a way, going through so much change at once, that I lost myself in it. I wasn’t sure I could adapt in all the ways that I might have to when the even bigger change ahead of me comes.

Finding Myself in the Change Curve

As the weeks went on, I started sharing how I was struggling with my family, friends, and loved ones. I realized I was disoriented and I was looking for a frame to ground me again. Through these conversations and some reflection, I realized a few key truths:

First: I needed to accept what was happening with all this change, instead of resisting it. Change always comes with a sense of loss, even when it’s objectively good. I had to acknowledge that reality.

Second: once I accepted it, I had to learn how to adapt again. To rebuild routines, reconnect with what grounded me, and start problem-solving instead of staying stuck in reflection. I remembered that adapting requires acting with agency. It’s how you turn paralysis into meaningful movement.

As the world mysteriously works its ways, I randomly saw this chart in my inbox a couple weeks ago: “the change curve.” It maps how people process disruption in stages of shock, denial, resistance, gradual acceptance, then growth. At first, I thought this made sense only for dealing with the bad kind of change. But it turns out this mapped pretty well to my first and second realization too: I needed to go from steps 1-3, to 4-6.

Gratitude as the Lens

As I reflected on the change curve, I felt something was missing. Acceptance and adaption aren’t the finish line. You can acknowledge that life has changed and still feel lost in it. What truly moves you forward, is gratitude.

For me, gratitude helps me reframe my discomfort. It helps me see not just what’s new, but also what’s enduring. It reminds me that even when life feels unfamiliar, there is meaning in the process of becoming.

Through that lens, I realized what I was truly grateful for wasn’t just these big life milestones that I was speeding through…but what they revealed:

1. The constants that steady you through any change: my wife, my parents, my sister, my friends, and mentors. Every single person that has seen me, heard me, supported me and believed in me even when I was filled with self-doubt. I’m grateful for their love as a constant.

2. The growth hidden inside discomfort: I’m a growth-minded person at my core. Change stretches me in ways that comfort never can. I love how change exposes your edges and makes you expand them. I feel like I can do anything I want in this one life, because I know I’m capable of adaptation. And even though it’s uncomfortable as hell, I’m grateful for that discomfort.

3. A moment to notice change: I’m grateful for a chance to pause, reflect, and feel life as it’s unfolding…not just in hindsight, but now.

Growing Through Gratitude

When I look back on the last thirteen years with my wife, I feel gratitude. When I think about this whirlwind summer and the months ahead with a baby on the way, I feel gratitude. I know these changes have stretched me and there are only larger changes with even more discomfort ahead.

That is the way it goes. But I will keep reframing around gratitude as my lens to sharpen the edges when they get blurry. It’s my way of turning uncertainty into understanding, discomfort into growth, and commit to the journey — not just the destination.