Water Your Plants

Plants in your home or garden are dependent on you to provide them with the nutrients and environment they need to survive. As a plant caretaker, you must make sure they are in nutritious soil, placed in an area where they can receive enough sunlight, and make sure they are watered to their needs. Each plant has different needs. In your own life, the parts you water will grow, while the parts you don’t will die.

Choosing which “plants” you water is a choice everyone must make. We do not have an infinite amount of time to pursue everything we want to. Life is about choices and the choices we make determine which areas of our life we choose to water. With time as our water, we can only water so many plants.

The metaphor of “watering” the parts of our lives applies to all aspects of our lives. Our minds, our relationships, our bodies, our abilities, everything revolves around a sense of seeking the “water” to improve. On the flip side, any of the parts we fail to water begin to die. If we fail to water our relationships with our partners, friends, or family, we can see them begin to fade away. If we fail to challenge ourselves physically, we will fall out of shape. If we set goals but then choose not to work towards them, we will return back to where we started, instead of slowly sprouting our improvement. The plants in our lives must be watered if we want them to be healthy, otherwise, they will wither.

In choosing to water parts of our lives we are playing God about what is currently most important for us. We are the masterminds for the personal gardens that make up our lives. Obsession is okay if we care to cultivate one part of our life into the best plant possible, but also means other plants (parts) of our lives will be neglected and can die. We could also aim for a more balanced perspective where we cultivate a whole garden of the parts of our life we choose to grow. We may not grow the biggest or best “plant” but we will have a very well-rounded set of relationships, abilities, and anything else we believe is important. Like growing a real garden, we could also choose to change what we want to water depending on the season. For periods we can opt for an obsession-focused garden and then switch back up for a more balanced garden in the next cycle. The power we have to create our own, unique gardens is immense.

What is in your garden and what are you watering?

What is waiting for next season to be grown?

What needs more water now?

Assess your life and find out what is in your garden and what else needs to be. Then water your plants.