Did You Start Your Garden Yet?

I watched Tyler Perry's message on “How to be Successful”. Essentially the message is that you have to find your passion and pour all of it into that passion. If you plant multiple seeds, then you need more water, or you can plant one seed and that one seed will reproduce and plant the other seeds you want. I was asked to write about what motivates me to do the things I do, then I am challenged to be able to act upon it.

I don’t know what the answer here should be. Typically any person would say children, family, career, and a bunch of other things. I cannot say that. I mean I know that those things are important, but I am going to go out on a limb and be selfish. I MOTIVATE MYSELF! Similar to Tyler Perry’s message, if all of these other things motivated me, then that would be too many seeds to water. However, if I am the motivator, then all of those other things or people are happy. Now an even bigger question, what am I motivated to do. Again there a million things but if it were just one that I could pick, it would be to help others. Many of you only know me from an online perspective and don’t know the real me. There have been so many trials and tribulations throughout my life, some caused by me and some caused by others that I had absolutely no control over. I would love to be able to say that everything is everyone else’s fault but most of it is mine and I have to accept that. As I am writing this I am actually changing my thoughts and thinking that my one motivator is actually the future.

We always feel like we have to deal with the things that are given to us at that present moment and don’t think about the future outcomes. If I could have seen further into my future when I was younger things would have been different, but knowing what I know now, things are already different. I plant the seed so I can enjoy my time in my garden watching the plant grow. Maybe sip on some lemonade or some wine, and truly sit back and enjoy that flower while tending to the rest of the garden, but that particular flower is special to me. Why? Because it bears the seeds of my children, my career, my love, my family, my hobbies, my skills, my friends, and anything else that GOD wants to bless me with in the future. Once that flower grows and blooms, I am able to see the beautiful petals it has produced, but even more importantly, it pollinates with other compatible flowers to grows new ones. Let me give you a for instance. My flower grows and bears the seeds of my children. One day my children will grow and become their own capable adults and pollinate with other, and creates a new plant of their own. They now have their own seed. It is my job to help water that seed even though they are no longer a part of my plant, and tend to that seed. Eventually their plant will produce their own seeds consisting of their children, life, love, career, education, etc. Understand? (This all ties in I promise) Those bad things that happened in your life are the bad petals - you allow those petals to wither and die. They will always be a part of that plants past, and will become fertilization material for the next spring and for many years after, but eventually new dirt and soil is added and the concentration of that withered petal grows smaller and smaller
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My motivation is to pollinate as many other plants as possible and see what their futures hold. To see the great flowers that will be produced and create a Garden of Hope. I want to help those people that have withered petals. Things that were supposed to be beautiful but didn’t make it for whatever reason. Maybe that petal was not given enough sun, or was fed on by a worm, or poisoned by a snake. For whatever reason, those petals are dead. I want to help pick them off and put them on the ground so we can move on. So we can make room for the petals that have survived. I want to be able to give nutrients, water, and life to the other flowers in my garden and other gardens. All it take it my one seed. The one seed of my life is creating the future!

Therefore, in all of my selfishness, my motivation is to water my seed, and nourish it, give it sunlight, pluck the bad petals, and allow new ones to grow! How do we really put this into action! Simply put, by taking care of ME! By striving for the things I am good at, by having faith, by always pushing myself the extra mile, by being confident, by ridding my life of all of the negativity, and most importantly by ensuring that my flower is always planted in the sun, where God can shine his light on me.