Not everything you learn will be life changing, but everything you learn will change your life.
A new perspective. A new technique. A new appreciation. A new approach.
We finished our first gardening job today. Gardening has been so beneficial for me. Mainly learning how important it is to not let the enormity of a project overwhelm me. It’s been a good teacher in emphasizing the need to focus on what’s in front of me, instead the totality of the work.
Weeding is perhaps the best teacher. When I look at our backyard, and see weeds everywhere, my initial reaction is always, “I don’t have time for this, this is going to take forever.” Which usually leads to a day or two of procrastination.
But, if I simply focus on just getting one weed at a time. The weed right in front of me, and ignoring the hundreds of others that have popped their head up, all of a sudden the task seems manageable, and the time flies.
Sometimes while I’m weeding my mind will actually wonder into the future, to two weeks from now when all of the weeds will have grown back. And just that thought always makes me pause. But I bring myself back by pulling just the one weed in front of me.
Stump removal is similar. I encountered a huge stump in my backyard where I was trying to level land for our greenhouse frame. The first day that I attacked it I spent hours trying to rip it out. Breaking two shovels in the process. I was just whacking at it, trying to pry it from the ground. I thought I was going to remove the whole thing in one powerful move. But stumps don’t work that way, hence the broken shovels.
It was only after I took a step back, and started to cut away at it tentacle by tentacle, that I was able to make any progress. And it was only after I bought a pick axe that I was able to remove it.
I had a similar experience over 2 days trying to remove a stump at our client’s house. On day 1, forgetting the lessons of the stump removal of my house, I was comitted to removing it in one shot. But the stump, which was packed into a slope of hard rock and clay, wouldn’t budge. Luckily, no shovels were broken.
On day 2 I came back with a shovel, loppers, and the pick axe. Over the course of 2 hours I methodically clipped, smashed, and dug the stump out. Yes, it took 2 hours, but it was an enjoyable 2 hours. The puzzle created by the stump kept me engaged and present the whole time.
In the end, I won, and I also came away with a great workout, and a great lesson.
Gardening has also driven home the importance of using the right tools for the job. The reason I broke 2 shovels trying to remove that first stump is because it wasn’t the right tool, on it’s own, for the job. The pick axe was.
The same was true of the stump at our client’s house. The shrub being removed was half dead, half alive, with wild shoots and branches popping out all over it, that were preventing me from seeing the best way to approach the base. But on day 2, I used the loppers to trim it all the way down to the base, which allowed me to better plan my attack.
Whenever I learn these lessons in my everyday life, I think about where else in my life I might be banging a shovel when I really need a pick axe. Or where else I’m procrastinating a project because I can’t find the first weed to pull. Most times it’s not that clear, but I know a moment in the future will come when I will refer back to these lessons, and they’ll help guide me towards better outcomes.
That lesson came to me while I was opening the box that our new floor mop came in. Jen was trying to open it from the top, using pure strength to get it open. But it wouldn’t budge. So, she turned to me as she was about to run into the shower and said “can you open it?”
When I got around to it later in the evening, I instinctively went for the top because that’s what I watched Jen do. But after a few moments of struggling to get it open, I stopped and asked myself, “there must be an easier way.” I flipped it all around and found the right side with the tucked in flaps. I pulled them out and the boxed opened.
So many times in our lives we keep trying the same thing over and over again, expecting a different outcome. We’ve all heard the saying, “the definition of insanity…” But, I always thought they just meant really big and important things. I never thought that it could also apply to opening a box. In a past life, I would’ve ripped the box open. I never would’ve looked for another way.
I’ve realized lately that the biggest, most important, changes you make in how you live your life will go mostly unnoticed by those around you. People might notice the outcome. You lost some weight. You have more free time. You’re making more money. You’re happier. But they won’t understand how you did it. How you made a lot of small and unrecognizable changes, that changed your whole life.
Don’t get sucked up in making “big changes.” Big changes are the result of the accumulation of small changes over time.