ideas that we associate with “our eternal selves”.

But our permanent self is a myth,

and once we learn that, we can look beyond the need to have life stay the same.

First of all, aniccā refers to everything in this world which is impermanent.

The characteristic of impermanence has been noted not only in Buddhist thought but
also elsewhere in the history of thought. It was the ancient Greek philosopher
Heraclitus who observed that one cannot step down the same river twice.
In the Buddhist scriptures it is said that everything is impermanent like clouds,
samsara like dancing, human beings like lightning or falls. Similarly, our mental
states are impermanent. At one point we were happy, and at another we were sad.
This is true also of things we see around us. Understanding impermanence is
important not only simply for our practice of the Dhamma but also in our daily lives.
It is a key to understanding the ultimate nature of things.
Impermanent indeed are the compounded things, they are of the nature of
arising and passing away. Having come into being, they cease to exist. Hence their
pacification is tranquility. Impermanence is a synonym for “arising and passing
away” or “birth and destruction”. In fact, the law of universal impermanence has not
only negative or destructive aspect but also a positive or constructive one. It is on the
truth of the impermanence of the nature that the possibility of all things depends. If
things do not change continuously but are permanent and irreversible, then human
evolution and the development of lives will come to a dead stop.
But due to perversion of view, one is unable to see the true nature of existent
reality. One sees things which are impermanent as permanent and becomes
passionately attached to those things which are transient, mutable and therefore
unsatisfactory. The Buddha has said that, “Yad aniccaṃtaṃdukkham”. It means that
whatever is impermanent is unsatisfactory. The world dukkha is rendered variously as
“ill”, “suffering”, “pain” or “unsatisfactoriness”. We do not deny that there are
different forms of happiness, both physical and spiritual, for layperson as well as for
the monastic. But all these are included as Dukkha, not because there is suffering in
the ordinary sense of the word, but because “Anything is impermanent in dukkha”.
The Dhammapāda says:

Sabbe saṅkhārā aniccā iti yadā paññāya passati

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