My Garden

There's a small garden plot in front of my house. Once upon a time (when I first moved into this place), I diligently planted some flowering plants and weeded it often. It gives me a lot of pleasure to see the flowers blooming so well.

After a while, with the demands of life and work, I stopped tending to my garden. Soon, grass and weeds overwhelmed it. One day I decided to pull out the grasses and weeds, and in the process of doing so, I pulled out the flowers as well. Getting fed-up. I decided clear the whole garden of flowers, weeds and grass and start all over again.

After such tiring work, I decided to take a break, buy some flower seeds and start planting the next time I'm free. Then it started raining almost everyday, and so I can't work in the garden. Then it became too hot. And the haze was back! Then I was too busy. The next time I have a bit of free time, I was surprised to see that all the weeds and grass has grown back!

And so, I started to clear the weeds and grass again, which is back-breaking work, having to squat and bend my back. Big giant ants were also crawling all over the place and there were big fat worms too!! Yucks! All these happened a few cycles in more than 1 year.

One fine day, I was again hacking away at the grass, telling myself that I'll get this garden blooming by Chinese New Year. An elderly lady walking a dog stopped to chat with me.

"I noticed that you keep clearing this garden, but didn't plant anything," she said. I explained that the garden was most uncooperative. It kept growing weeds before I have time to plant my flowers! The old auntie smiled and said it's because I should have planted the flowers immediately after I cleared the weeds. Otherwise, the weeds will keep growing back no matter how many times I clear it. Auntie also instructed me to plant my flower seeds in a small pot first, let the seeds germinate and grow into a small plant, then replant it into my garden.

It occurred to me that our mind is exactly like my garden. We had big plans and dreams to make it beautiful, but after a while, the stress of life overcrowds us. And weeds started growing. And whatever flowers we had were choked to death.

I realized that if we want change in our lives, we must start by clearing the weeds from our mind, and at the same time start planting seeds of `knowledge', `self-motivation', `encouragement', `happiness' and as many good seeds as you could find. And where can we find these seeds? From reading books, listening to good CDs and tapes, yes, even watching great movies, (my favourite is "In Pursuit of Happyness" starring Will Smith).

Other ways? – choosing to spent time with positive friends, getting and spending quality time with a mentor, and taking the time to plan and write down our goals. Attending seminars and talks is one of my favourite ways. Very soon I will have a great bouquet of flowers to share with all those I love.