With flowers bursting into bloom seemingly overnight, it seemed fitting to recycle this post from June 2018. Enjoy.
If you read my blog regularly, you know that patience is not my strong suit. I want things to happen quickly like a thunderstorm – swift and noticeable. Instead, things happen like a seed planted in soil – slow and subtle.
Here’s a true story: In January, I planted California poppy seeds. In March, everyone else’s poppies started to bloom. Mine did not. I checked my poppies frequently, searching for signs of buds. Each day I stared at verdant green leaves, but no hints of orange. Finally, in about mid-May, the first bud appeared, and then suddenly, a flower. It thrilled me to see orange after so many months of waiting. I beamed from ear to ear and pride swelled within me. But note, it took months, MONTHS, for my poppies to catch up to everyone else’s.
Right now, I feel like those poppies, behind the times. Many of my friends are progressing in their lives. They’re buying houses, getting married, having babies. Things are not perfect – I am privy to their challenges as well as triumphs – but big milestones are happening in their lives. The same is not true for me. Instead, I am a poppy plant with no hint of a bud.
A part of me thinks something is wrong that I’m not cycling with my peers. I’m not blooming while they are. However, I’m reminded of what my spiritual teacher said regarding movement. Movement is systaltic, like a heartbeat. Do you know how a heart pumps blood? I learned this ages ago in AP Bio. A heart is like a syringe – it fills up with blood, pauses at fullness, and then pushes all the blood out. In all of life, we experience this cycle. It’s the natural order of things to expand, pause, and contract.
I think I’m still in the expanding phase. I haven’t reached fullness yet. I’m still pulling nutrients from the soil. When I look at those around me, it’s hard not to compare myself with them. I know, I know, comparison is the thief of joy. I know compare usually leads to despair. I know I’m not doing myself any favors by comparing my life with anyone else’s, yet, I’m doing it anyway.
Instagram makes it hard not to think everyone else’s life is so much cooler than mine. I’m envious of what they have. But when I think about my poppies, when I think about life being systaltic, I feel a smidge better because I’m reminded I am in my own cycle. It may take longer for things to bloom, but that doesn’t mean they won’t.
I dream of a world where we remember we each have our own cycles. A world where we realize sometimes things happen quickly and sometimes things happen slowly. A world where we realize there’s not much we can do about timing other than to take the required action and let go of the rest. A world where after waiting and waiting, then there’s a bloom.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
Last week, I watched an inspirational movie about kids who utilized their talents to win scholarships to college and pull themselves out of poverty. All of the kids were the first in their families to go to college, and by doing so they become teachers, writers, policemen, etc. They weren’t forced to work in low-wage jobs like their parents were.
I teared up watching the flick – I love that they improved their lives – but then I got to thinking, “What about everyone else?” What about the kids who don’t have an exceptional talent that wins them a scholarship? These kids escaped the cycle of poverty, but someone else is waiting in the wings to take their place. Just because one person no longer has to pick oranges for a living doesn’t mean oranges stop getting picked. It doesn’t mean all the other orange pickers no longer have to endure poor working conditions and low wages.
If you think about it, all society consists of is you and me. “You” being plural here.
The cycle of exploitation continues and our capitalistic economy feeds off it. In the case of food production, almost literally. Why is this? Because we continue to emphasis the rights of individuals (or corporations, who are now considered people) over the collective.
I’ve seen the individual versus the collective show up in a big way this week with the killing of Cecil the Lion. Minnesotan dentist Walter Palmer paid $50,000 to hunt Cecil the Lion, who was a big tourist attraction in Zimbabwe. Did Palmer think about anyone other than himself when he set out to kill Cecil? No he did not. He was prioritizing his own selfish interests.
Another way that the individual versus the collective is prioritized is the public’s reaction to the killing of Cecil. We’re directing so much ire against Palmer, but not talking as much about poaching laws in general. Outrage has reached such a fever pitch that Zimbabwe is calling for Palmer’s extradition and many people in the U.S. agree. I think part of the reason we’re seeing so much outrage over Cecil is it’s easy to excoriate an individual.
A few of my friends who are more focused on the collective have exclaimed they wish society would be as outraged over the killing of black people in our country as people are over the killing of Cecil. It’s harder to evoke as much outrage against a system, which is also harder to dismantle, than it is to get pissed off an at individual. Racism is so rampant, it’s seeped into many aspects of life, and how do you go about changing something like that?
I think it starts with prioritizing the collective. There is an African proverb that says, “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” We are not going to go far if we keep focusing on ourselves alone. We are not going to solve any of our serious societal problems if we’re thinking, “How can I benefit?” instead of “How can we benefit?” Life can be better for all of us but that starts with striking a balance between the individual and the collective.
My spiritual teacher says, “One must not forget that collective welfare lies in individuals and individual welfare lies in collectivity. Without ensuring individual comforts through the proper provision of food, light, air, accommodation, and medical treatment, the welfare of the collective body can never be achieved. One will have to promote individual welfare motivated by the spirit of promoting collective welfare.”
I dream of a world where we go far, together. A world where we prioritize taking care of each other. A world where we understand what’s good for the collective is also good for the individual. A world where we work to raise each other up, and improve life for us all, because after all, you plus me equals we.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.
One of the best ways to make myself miserable is to start comparing myself to others. To start the ranking process to figure out who’s superior and who’s inferior. To look at someone else and feel bad because I don’t have their complexion, their body, their brains, their whatever. One of the best ways to make myself miserable is to start wanting to be someone else because I think they are better or superior to me.
This ranking thing has to go. I can’t speak for everyone but I can say for me it’s been detrimental. In high school I really wanted to be salutatorian of my class, mostly so I could give a speech at graduation. The day class rank came out I remember passing by the guidance counselor in the cafeteria and I said, “Well?” She held up three fingers. I had dropped from number two to number three. I went to my car in the parking lot and cried as I slumped over the steering wheel. I cried. Over class rank. Because I was one one-thousandth of a point lower than someone else. Really? What does it matter if I’m number two or number 200? It’s doesn’t mean I’m “worse” than anyone else.
I think partly, yes, in high school I used my class rank as a means to identify my self-worth, but I know now self-worth comes from within. Yet, I think at the root of this whole ranking, superiority/inferiority thing is a rejection of the self. Of wanting to be like someone else. To look like someone else. To have what someone else has.
One of my favorite authors Louise L. Hay says, “We are each made to be different.” It does me no good to try to be like anyone else because I end up demoralized and depressed. I am me. I am made by my creator specifically so I can be me. We are each made to be different. No one is superior or inferior to anyone. This whole rank and number one business is a human construct, which means it can be unconstructed.
We are made to be ourselves. We are made to be different. Billions of stars light up the night sky. Each is important. Each is valuable. I don’t look like Heidi Klum because I’m not supposed to look like Heidi Klum. I’m supposed to look like me. The more I love and approve and accept myself as I am the better. So I’m kicking inferiority and superiority out the door.
I dream of a world where we all love and approve and accept ourselves as we are. Where we recognize our magnificence, where we recognize our brightness. Where we know we are neither superior nor inferior to anyone else. Where we understand we are each made to be different. Where we revel in our differences and accept who we are as people. Where we come together as a bouquet of flowers, each flower beautiful in its own right, but not nearly as beautiful as when they’re bound together.
Another world is not only possible, it’s probable.