Sometimes life feels like a storm you didn’t see coming. You are doing everything right, yet the wind keeps shifting, pushing you to the edge of what you think you can handle. I have learned that those moments aren’t there to break us. They are there to teach us how to bend.
Lately, I’ve been thinking about what it really means to grow. Not just to move forward or climb higher, but to grow; in depth, in patience and in strength.
A tree doesn’t reach the sky in one season. It grows through cycles of calm and chaos, sunshine, rain, and storms that test its limits. But every time the wind blows, the tree bends a little. It learns flexibility. And that’s what keeps it standing when the storm passes.
I used to believe growth was about constant motion, you know, thoughts of achieving the next thing, hitting the next goal, checking the next box is all i need. But over time, I learned that true growth often happens in the quiet, uncomfortable moments when things don’t go as planned.
Guess what, ambition might be the seed, but flexibility is the soil that allows it to flourish. Life doesn’t always move in straight lines; it shifts, surprises, and sometimes disappoints us. I’ve had plans that fell apart, ideas that didn’t land, and moments when I questioned my direction. But each time, bending, not breaking, made all the difference.
To “bend with the wind” isn’t about giving up. It’s about trusting the process enough to adjust. It’s about knowing when to hold firm to your roots and when to let go of what no longer serves you. It’s learning to listen to feedback, open to change, to learn from life itself, without losing your core.
When I look back, the hardest seasons have shaped me the most. Every challenge, every pause, every redirection added another invisible ring to my own trunk. They didn’t just make me tougher; they made me wiser.
And maybe that’s what it means to truly grow tall, not to stand rigid against the wind, but to move with it.
So now, when the winds of change come, and they always do, I try to remember, “bending isn’t weakness. It’s strength in motion”. The kind that endures, the kind that grows.
Bend first. Grow stronger. Stand tall.
