Growth requires some contribution. In order to have something grow, you need to invest some time into it. Take a veggie garden for instance — planting seedlings can’t simply be set and forgotten. Firstly comes the preparation of the ground or pot. It needs to be free of weeds and ready to receive a new plant. Then it has to be in the right position — you can’t expect optimum growth if the new plant isn’t able to get sunshine and rain.
Like enrolling in a course and not doing any of the homework and expecting to pass with high distinction — learning will be minimal and there won’t be much in the way of growth. Children and babies are other examples: like plants, babies need regular feeding and attention — and boy do they let you know if they need anything. Unlike plants which can’t call out for feed or water, weeding, and so forth, babies are loud and demanding, so they get the attention. They get fed and changed and cuddled regularly so they grow.
On the weekend Ross and I went to the nursery to get some veggie seedlings — I’m rather impatient and needed them already grown. I’ve tried raising them myself from seeds but with a fairly low success rate. So we collected half a dozen punnets and when we got home I actually planted them! I’ve bought plants before and forgotten to plant them in time and they’ve died on me. So I’d prepared the pots beforehand and they were ready for the plants. Once they were all planted I watered them and then fed them with some slow-release fertilizer. Now I just have to water them every day, feed them once in a while and keep the snails and weeds away from them so they have room to grow.
So far I’m winning against the snails and slugs and the weeds haven’t had time to grow. The plants are looking alive — which is much better than not. And I’m having fun watching them grow. In two days they’ve grown enough that they wouldn’t fit back in their original punnets. So that’s progress. But then again I am giving these plants lots of love and attention so I can expect a lot of growth.
In comparison, I can look at my life and see the times when I didn’t contribute much, where I just sat back and felt sorry for myself and expected things to happen around me. Like friendships — they need to be cultivated, fed, and watered as it were. If there is no input from one side of a friendship, then eventually it will fade away. So when I stop and look at my life to see where I need to pay some attention, I see there are some friendships that are in need of more effort. And there are other areas of my life I could spend more time on. So I’ve started a list — I do like a good list that I can tick things off — and I’ve begun working my way through that list.