What Changes and What Doesn't

My boys,

I have spent enough years trying to keep changing things from changing.

It doesn't work.

Maybe the better skill is learning what belongs to the season and what belongs to the roots.

What changes

Your shoes.

Every time I think I know your size, one of you proves me wrong.

Your voices.

Little by little, the boys I hear calling from another room will sound different.

The house.

Furniture moves. Paint fades. Things break. Rooms that once held toys will someday hold something else.

My face.

There are already lines that weren't there when you were born. More will come.

My body.

What recovers overnight today may eventually need two days. What I can carry will change. How quickly I move will change.

Money.

There will be years with more and years with less.

The business.

Customers change. Technology changes. Markets change. What worked yesterday eventually becomes the thing we have to reconsider.

Friendships.

Some deepen.

Some drift.

Some end without anyone doing anything wrong.

Plans.

Especially plans.

You can write them in ink if you want.

Life still owns an eraser.

What I think I know.

I hope this changes.

A man who believes exactly the same things at sixty that he believed at twenty probably spent forty years defending himself instead of learning.

Almost everything visible moves eventually.

That is not instability.

That is life.

What doesn't

My word.

If I give it, changing circumstances do not automatically release me from it.

My responsibility for you.

The form will change.

When you are small, I protect you.

When you are older, I guide you.

When you become men, I respect the lives you build.

But I remain your father.

The standard when nobody is watching.

Good work does not become less important because nobody checks it.

The dignity of another person.

Rich or poor.

Useful to me or not.

Agreeing with me or not.

People are not objects whose value changes according to what they can do for me.

The need to tell the truth.

Even when the truth becomes inconvenient.

Especially then.

Gratitude.

The size of the harvest may change.

The obligation to recognize what God provided does not.

Prayer.

There will be seasons when faith feels close and seasons when I have to reach for it through fog.

I still turn toward God.

How I want you to feel when you come home.

Welcome.

Not evaluated first.

Not required to earn your chair.

Welcome.

My love for you.

That one does not belong to a season.

There is freedom in sorting these things correctly.

If you treat everything as permanent, you become rigid.

You cling to jobs, identities, possessions, methods, and versions of people long after their season has passed.

But if you treat everything as temporary, you become untethered.

Nothing means enough to protect.

Nothing deserves sacrifice.

Nothing holds when the weather changes.

A good life needs both.

Branches flexible enough to move.

Roots stubborn enough not to.

The leaves are changing outside now.

The tree is letting them.

But it is not letting go of the ground.

Know the difference.

I love you.

— Baba

Question:

What in your life are you trying to keep permanent that belongs to a season, and what have you treated casually that should never move?

Moral:

Wisdom is not resisting change. It is knowing what may change without losing you, and what must remain anchored while everything else turns.

This story reflects real experiences and philosophies behind Backyard Brew. It is shared to inspire perspective and intention.

Author: R. Solace