Don’t focus on weeds
I recently had a conversation with a colleague who was dissatisfied with work and life in general. He talked about the difficulties he encountered during his struggle to find peace and fulfillment.
He recounted discrimination and pressure he felt from his employer.
His work skills were being minimized by menial tasks and subordinate duties.
I could feel the frustration and his desire to find something that would bring fruition to his life.
His chosen profession was law.
His firm focused on litigation.
He wanted to practice mediation.
During the conversation he talked about all the weeds he would have to encounter to reach his goal.
I asked what his perfect dream job would be.
He began to describe his passion to help people through mediation.
He recounted his successes.
His current employer would not allow him to engage in any law activity outside his job and thus kept him from doing what he loved most.
He talked about how the job description had been padded by the employer.
The reality of the position was entirely different from his expectation.
His real desire was to open a business where he could do what he loved. His predicament was finding suitable income to sustain him during the transition between the old menial job and his new dream job.
He again brought up the weeds he would have to encounter along the way.
At this point I stopped him.
I refocused the conversation.
Weeds will always be a part of life but our choice of what we focus on will make all the difference. If we can see flowers along the way, weeds will be minimal and the journey more memorable.
As a young man one of my first jobs was lawn care. It gave me spending money, got me out of the house and gave me a sense of accomplishment.
Each spring I would place an ad in the paper for jobs which would keep me busy all summer.
When I took on a new customer, invariably I would find lots of weeds, an unkept lawn and overgrown bushes and trees that needed trimming.
As a young man it was hard not to focus on the weeds and overgrowth.
At the end of the day when the grass was mowed, bushes molded and shaped and trees trimmed, I felt a sense of satisfaction. The cherry on top was the money that I earned. After that first initial push of cleaning and trimming, the rest of the summer was an easy money maker.
My lesson in life has been to keep focus on the reward and the end result, not about weeds along the way.
Walking my stepdaughter to school today I smelled the strong smell of poison pesticides. The lawn care professionals had been kind enough to post signs that it was not safe to walk on the grass, unfortunately they did not warn me of the danger of inhaling the fumes and toxic residues left by their choice of products.
The price we pay for chemically manicured lawns and gardens is too high.
The price we pay for a manicured life and job is too high.
Society has mandated that we conform to standards that are not healthy choices.
Find out what is more important to you … peace and contentment or conformity to artificial standards.
My answer is to keep focus on the end result.
The path you choose and the focus of your intention will make the difference between finding weeds or peace and fulfillment.
