Have you ever noticed that the things that you don't want to grow do so at an alarming rate but the things you want to grow seem to take forever?
The yard at my Olympia house is the perfect case to prove my point. The front yard has a lovely patch of green grass with a little clover here and there and a bald patch. The backyard is completely overrun by weeds. Like, if there was such a thing as a weed garden, I have one.
The house has been empty for a month so I have to drive down to Olympia to water the grass and mow. I have long since given up on watering the mess in the back, I have focused my efforts over the past few weeks on keeping the front looking nice. I sprayed weed and feed in the front, pulled the big weeds out, give it a good soak at least once a week and I bought some of that all in one grass/soil/fertilizer to try and restore the bald spots. I was feeling hopeful.
Upon returning to the house this week I found that not a single blade of grass has sprouted up in that all in one business but every single weed that has ever existed in the grass has multiplied. I am not sure I can even describe the back mess, it is a jungle back there. If you cut heads of lettuce in half and laid them out across your yard covering every single inch and then put random yellow flowers that were 3 feet tall in the middle of each head of lettuce - that would be my backyard. If there is an award for the largest weed like there is for the heaviest pumpkin, I might be in the running. And yet while those weeds seem to be on steroids, the grass is getting brown and the little new seedlings have done nothing in the direction of grow.
How is it possible that with the same amount of rain and watering the weeds grow 10-fold and the grass turned brown and nothing new sprouted? How is it possible that I poured all kinds of bad for the environment chemicals on those weeds and they still grew?
I don't know the answer to this. I'm sure a turf-ologist could shine some light on the why, but the fact will still remain: the unwanted things have superpowers.
The same is true in my life. The things I want to grow, the good things, the patience, self-control and peace are so hard to cultivate, but the things I don't want, the anger, negativity and gluttony (its vacation week and I ate a lot of junk) seem to come so easily.
Mold, moss, clover, those long stringy weeds that wrap around you and stab you with little poky things disguised as innocent leaves - those things don't seem to need much to thrive.
But the plant I was given on the last day of school that is now a shriveled up mess of brown twigs, new grass, strawberries in the garden, fruit trees - need time and just the perfect amounts of water and sun.
Why can't the weeds be hard to grow and the grass come easily? Why can't patience be the natural thing while frustration is something you really have to work hard on?
The yard at my Olympia house is the perfect case to prove my point. The front yard has a lovely patch of green grass with a little clover here and there and a bald patch. The backyard is completely overrun by weeds. Like, if there was such a thing as a weed garden, I have one.
The house has been empty for a month so I have to drive down to Olympia to water the grass and mow. I have long since given up on watering the mess in the back, I have focused my efforts over the past few weeks on keeping the front looking nice. I sprayed weed and feed in the front, pulled the big weeds out, give it a good soak at least once a week and I bought some of that all in one grass/soil/fertilizer to try and restore the bald spots. I was feeling hopeful.
Upon returning to the house this week I found that not a single blade of grass has sprouted up in that all in one business but every single weed that has ever existed in the grass has multiplied. I am not sure I can even describe the back mess, it is a jungle back there. If you cut heads of lettuce in half and laid them out across your yard covering every single inch and then put random yellow flowers that were 3 feet tall in the middle of each head of lettuce - that would be my backyard. If there is an award for the largest weed like there is for the heaviest pumpkin, I might be in the running. And yet while those weeds seem to be on steroids, the grass is getting brown and the little new seedlings have done nothing in the direction of grow.
How is it possible that with the same amount of rain and watering the weeds grow 10-fold and the grass turned brown and nothing new sprouted? How is it possible that I poured all kinds of bad for the environment chemicals on those weeds and they still grew?
I don't know the answer to this. I'm sure a turf-ologist could shine some light on the why, but the fact will still remain: the unwanted things have superpowers.
The same is true in my life. The things I want to grow, the good things, the patience, self-control and peace are so hard to cultivate, but the things I don't want, the anger, negativity and gluttony (its vacation week and I ate a lot of junk) seem to come so easily.
Mold, moss, clover, those long stringy weeds that wrap around you and stab you with little poky things disguised as innocent leaves - those things don't seem to need much to thrive.
But the plant I was given on the last day of school that is now a shriveled up mess of brown twigs, new grass, strawberries in the garden, fruit trees - need time and just the perfect amounts of water and sun.
Why can't the weeds be hard to grow and the grass come easily? Why can't patience be the natural thing while frustration is something you really have to work hard on?
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