Friday, January 13, 2012

Ever new

Little steps that are repeated can and often do build one upon another, and before we know it, great things begin to happen.  True, the first steps may be tentative, and the result may be a while in coming, but patience often pays off.

This lesson can be learned through experience.  It can also be learned through the simplicity of every-day chores, done with diligence and with determination.  Evidence the experience of a pot of panatunies.  This story is told by an unknown contributor:


A pot of panatunies
As many times before, my gardening rituals brought about some thoughts. The other day I learned a lesson; but not one of which I didn't already know. The lesson just became clearer because of my hands-on experience.

We have a large pot of panatunies growing in our back yard. You might ask, "What are panatunies?" When our daughter was about 3 years old she proclaimed the name of our petunias by combining the name pansies and petunias. We have used that name ever since to describe our petunias.

Just like roses, if you want more blooms to occur on your petunias, you need to snap off the dried up buds. I don't mind at all dead-heading petunias or roses; in fact it's rather relaxing. So here I was working with this big pot of petunias which are a beautiful deep purple. As I was standing on one side of the pot I picked all the dead ones I could see, and thought I was through. However as I began to move around the pot I began to see more and more of them. For awhile I thought I would never finish. I began to lift up the stems to discover more underneath.

The result I am always trying to bring about is to help maintain a nice looking pot of panatunies. This work always rewards me with new blooms. A few days of laziness had got me to this place and I was paying the price.

The thought that came to me is that if we procrastinate, we pay a price or even worse. We may have to do something over and over to keep the beauty of what we want to accomplish.

In other words, change your perception, your view. Heck, stand at a different spot if you have to. There are times (sometimes many) that you feel you're going around in circles picking off old dried blooms, but what you are really doing is clearing up old negative garbage and being persistent trying out new ideas.

If you want your life to look and feel great there are times that you may have to do something over and over while you're looking under your old beliefs and picking them off to bring forth new and vibrant ones.

Ideas with right action equal a great life, but if you don't feel you're there yet then go back to the pot of panatunies and start over again. You will then find your life enriched with new vibrant blooms.

No comments: