I was weeding my backyard this morning. It’s such a tedious task, but I realized that there was just no other way to do it than to kneel down and start plucking. It began to gain a rhythm and the sheer volume of weeds made me mindful of just how much I had ignored in my life. Not to mention the pleasure which can be found in tending to what you’ve worked for, and also the regard you gain by understanding the responsibility of it all.
I worked so hard to acquire things, and not lose things, only to pay someone else to tend to them so I could keep myself distracted with my next trip, happy hour, concert, etc. Not to say that those things are/were bad, and I still love doing them, but rather, I never appreciated all that goes into the things money can buy. I was distracted by having the experience, which is momentary. And I’m pretty positive that I treated my marriage the same way. Working to go and do things, without tending to the responsibilities of having a relationship.
And I’ve also done this to myself. Leaving the proverbial “garden of my mind” to be tended to by distractions, only to find that distractions are a lot like using weed killer. You layer it on top of things you don’t want to look at and you think the small effort will make a difference, only to discover that it did very little and if you want anything to change you’re just going to have to pull the weeds by hand.
