“Change is inevitable.” That’s what everyone seemed to tell me whenever I complained about the topsy-turvy directions my life was taking. The divorce…Jim going to college…All I wanted was for things to stay the same. But no – “Change is inevitable.”

I cried and screamed my way through four years of change, until I was a sophomore in high school. Older, and, hopefully, wiser. That was the year of my first philosophy course. Not generally taught in high schools, but you could say we were ahead of the curve.

The teacher, or professor as he liked to call himself, began by talking about life.

“Sir,” I remember asking him, “is change really inevitable?”

“What do you think, Sierra?” he asked me. “Can you stop anything from changing?”

“I…I don’t know,” I replied. “People have been telling me that for so long, I guess…”

“Dude.” One boy from the back of the room spoke up. “I learned something this summer.”

“Yes?”

“Well, my friend said it. He says, ‘change is inevitable, except from a vending machine.’”