There are lots of agricultural fields near where I stay and I get to watch farmers at their activity. I thought there is so much common between the way they grow plants and the way we nurture ourselves, our children and other loved ones.
A farmer does not sow the seeds without preparing the land. Considerable time is spent tilling the land and preparing it for planting seeds. He turns it over and over. He adds some manure to the soil and gets it ready.
Growth does not happen without enabling environment. If we want ourselves and others around us to grow, we need to create an environment in which growth is possible.
A farmer sows plenty of seeds in his land. Even as he is sowing the seeds, he knows that some of the seeds will not grow into full plants. But looking at the seeds themselves he cannot make out which of the seeds will not bloom into a plant. He knows the probability of the growth for all the seeds that he is planting. Probability in an innate sense, not a mathematical sense. He is prepared for failure of some seeds and is expecting them
Seeds are the opportunity for growth that we encounter in our lives. We do not know which of the opportunities will lead to success and which won’t. If we knew before, we would weed them out. So we should play the probability game. too We should take as many opportunities as possible that come our way. Some will be successful and some will fail. Expectations of some failure should be built into the system.
A farmer does not look at a seed and think ‘Why is this only a seed? Why is this not a fruit?’ He understands that there is a process for a seed to yield fruit and he is willing to go through the process. He also knows that it takes time. He is not looking at his land every day wishing there were fruits.
Patience and process are important for growth. Once an opportunity is taken, we follow the process and wait for the outcome and do not become frustrated in the waiting time. Processes take time. Growth is a process, not an event. We have to wait patiently for the process to be completed.
A farmer does not curse the seeds that have not bloomed into a plant. He does not bother about the failures. He is focused on the plants that have bloomed and he nurtures them by watering them, adding fertilizer to them, weeding the land so that their growth is not stunted.
We should stop looking at opportunities that have not yielded results and focus on the ones that are working out. We polish them, we feed those opportunities and we make them bigger.
A seed, a plant, a flower a fruit are all stages of growth and each of the stages is perfection in itself. At each stage of our growth in our personal and professional life, we are perfect for that stage. A seed is not an imperfect fruit and a fruit is not a seed reaching perfection.