“May You Have A Strong Foundation When The Winds Of Changes Shift.” – Bob Dylan
Last Thursday, one of my favorite television shows, Parenthood, had its series finale. In honor of the show, I decided to take this week’s quote from its fantastic theme song, “Forever Young” by Bob Dylan. The song’s lyrics talk about the hopes one person has for another as they go through life’s ups and downs in the future. I picked this particular line because I think it’s an important one to try and explain.
When we have a strong foundation, we can withstand just about any change life throws our way. A strong foundation doesn’t just happen, however, and it’s not something some people just naturally have. A strong foundation is something to build upon. When contractors build a house, they must have a strong foundation beneath it so it doesn’t give out or sink in when there’s bad weather or a lot of activity inside. The same goes with people. If we aren’t strong, any time a wind of change comes our way, we’ll most likely break down in struggle or despair.
Breaking down is not the same thing as merely being emotionally bothered. Breaking down is when you let your emotions lead you into a downward spiral in which everything around you becomes too much to handle. Many people have been there, including me, and it’s not an easy or proud moment when it happens, but it’s not impossible to get out of. When you do get out of this spiral and rise above it, your foundation will strengthen within. You may not notice it right away, but the next time a wind of change comes your way, you’ll feel the difference. Things won’t be as difficult because you won’t feel as if it’s impossible to get through.
The only way to truly build your foundation is to go through difficult and unexpected changes. Changes such as not getting into the school of your dreams, losing a job you relied on, your best friend suddenly turning on you, someone close to you passing away, moving to a new place where you don’t know anyone, and graduating from a school you’ve been at for 4 years. These are real changes and when they come at us quickly and forcefully, they can indeed feel like winds just as the song metaphorically states. The more you get through in life and the more you adjust, the stronger you will become.
Your foundation is the core of who you are. It’s reflected in the way you handle things and keep going. If your core is never tested, it will never learn to withstand. One change is one brick of our foundation wall. The more changes or bricks we take on, the bigger and stronger our foundation wall becomes. If you’re lucky and live a long time, in the end, your foundation wall will be built to capacity and you’ll be the epitome of ultimate strength. Your wall will represent the personal journey that is your life.
The characters in Parenthood went through many changes in their lives and they tested their foundation every single day. In the very last scene of the series, their strength is beautifully showcased when the main characters honor their father who passes away by granting his last wish which was to play a baseball game in his memory. As brothers and sisters, their lives all come together as one in this moment and you know the changes they all had to go through up to that point made them who they are. While playing the baseball game, their future lives are previewed and you can see that they’ll continue to go through changes and their foundations will continue to strengthen.
We can’t escape changes in life, but we can choose to handle them with dignity and hope. If everything happened the way we expected it to, we’d never learn and we’d never grow. Our foundation would be nothing because it would be at a standstill. The reason I love Parenthood so much is because it was a show that reflected the changes people have to go through in a realistic way. It wasn’t all happily ever after all the time. And yet, the characters still end up happy. Not because everything went the way they wanted it to, but because they embraced change and chose to use it to strengthen their foundation for more changes in the future.
So I say to all of you: I hope you have a strong foundation when the winds of changes shift today and every day for the rest of your lives. Glow & shine bright! xo
Check out the gorgeous cover of “Forever Young” by Sam Beam and Rhiannon Giddens here: