Hi. This is the start of a new series with the theme “Three Things I’ve Learned”. I’m going to take everyday aspects of my life and look for three life lessons that can apply to anyone who wants to develop as a person. It’s a good practice for me, as well as being, I hope, helpful to you. I’ll be running it in parallel with my video series on Seven Steps to a Change Plan.
I enjoy having plants around, particularly flowering plants. I’m a fairly erratic gardener, but plants often seem to do well for me in spite of that. So a few years ago, I bought a flowering orchid at an orchid show where they were selling off surplus plants. It didn’t flower again for several more years, but towards the end of last year I noticed that it had a spike on it. I started encouraging it with orchid food – though I’m not sure how much difference that really made. It was going to flower regardless.
About mid-October, it was out, and I brought it inside where we could enjoy it. If I’d cut it, it might have lasted a week if I was lucky, but I left it on the plant, watered it occasionally, and just last week the last flower started to die. It had bloomed for more than three months. (I once had a cyclamen that flowered continuously for over a year.)
So, what did I learn from my orchid?
1. Plants will bloom when they’re ready to bloom. So will you and I.
Something that I see over and over with clients who come to me for help to change is that their issue has been going on for years, and they’ve been unhappy about it for at least months before they were ready to take the action of coming to see me. I’ve been asked by concerned parents if I can “make” their son or daughter stop smoking, and the answer, sadly, is no. They’ll look for ways to stop when they’re ready to stop, and not before. I wish I knew how to create readiness to change, in myself or other people, but I don’t – any more than I can make an orchid bloom before its time. (I know professional orchid growers can force blooming, but you get the idea.)
2. If you want it to last, leave it attached to what nurtures it.
I know that the positive changes I’ve seen in myself over the past few years are not just random – they’re a consequence of having practices in my life which nurture what’s blooming. They have roots. If I tried to separate them from the roots, they’d die very quickly.
3. Even so, eventually it may come time for the blooming to stop, for now.
This isn’t inevitable, of course. Personal change is not actually the same as flowers blooming; it can last the rest of your life. But if we think of a bloom as a practice or something of that nature, there are plenty of things that have come into my life, had their time of blooming, and gone again – but they could be back. I used to paint, for example, but haven’t done that for a while. Eventually I will take it up again, in its time. Enjoy your blooms while they last, without concerning yourself too much about how long that’s going to be.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the Three Things I Learned from Gardening. Next time: Three Things I Learned from Engineering!
Technorati Tags: life lessons
No related posts.