Planting a Seed.
Imagine yourself planting a seed in a plot of land that isn’t quite conducive to growth, yet you put in your time and effort for this seed to one day become a tree. Time has passed, and you became quite attached to this seed for you saw how it grew day by day because of your care. However, one day, because of external factors piling up, the tree was suddenly uprooted and was completely destroyed. Did your time and effort go to complete waste because things didn’t turn out ideally? Or were you happy that even despite the end result, you were able to plant a seed, and see growth?
Just like a tree, for relationships to grow, you need to tend to it, put in time, effort and constant care, and even sacrifice some things for it to grow. However, even a fully grown tree doesn’t always stay uprooted. Just like relationships, even after everything you’ve done, they can cease to exist.
Even after countless efforts for one another, unmeasurable time spent together, and promises of always being there for each other, we cannot hold on to someone or something that was never meant to last. Doesn’t it make you question that if even time, love, and effort can’t make something last, then what can?
If you’re like me, someone who values relationships way more than necessary, you’ll find it hard to let go even though you know deep down you should. Knowing when to let go isn’t when times get rough, it’s when you stop growing and when you aren’t content with where you are, who you’re with and what you’ve become. For those who find it a struggle to let go of people that aren’t contributing to your well-being, hear me out.
“The woman who follows the crowd will usually go no further than the crowd. The woman who walks alone is likely to find herself in places no one has been before.” — Albert Einstein
I used to be that type of person who would cling onto someone even though it meant dragging myself through toxicity. I would desperately try to please the other person even if it meant having to be someone I wasn’t. The reasons I’d do this?
Because I didn’t want to get out of my comfort zone.
I was scared that people would dislike me.
I feared change and the uncertainty that would follow.
I didn’t want to be alone.
“One can choose to go back toward safety or forward toward growth. Growth must be chosen again and again; fear must be overcome again and again.” — Abraham Maslow
All these reasons are driven by fear — fear of getting out of the familiar. It takes a lot to realise that living a life filled with fear and anxiety, is just trying to escape issues you know you need to face eventually — it is a waste of precious time. You need to stop blaming yourself for other people’s actions and you have to stop questioning your self worth when others can’t see you for who you really are.
“A man who flies from his fear may find that he has only taken a shortcut to meet it.” — Sador, Children of Húrin
In the process of pleasing people and depending your happiness on the validation of others, you lose true sight of yourself and become miserable. The only thing that actually kept me from completely breaking was the support of family, unwavering faith in God, and the foundation built in me that stood its ground in the storms of doubt.
After realising that the relationship is completely over, it can make you question a lot of things, but ultimately it can make you question whether all the time and effort was wasted. Well from what I’ve been through, let me tell you I learned:
In every relationship you form, and every person you choose to grow with, you deposit a seed into them. Throughout the years, you both will be able to tend to the relationship, and see it grow. However, not all relationships go towards that path of everlasting friendship, but that doesn’t mean that it was meaningless all along. Even if some grow apart, and some sadly even resent the other person, the good seed you planted in them will ALWAYS remain. It is up to them whether they continue to tend to that seed for it to bear good fruit or whether they choose to remove that good seed out of bitterness and hatred.
Never regret planting a seed, because out of all the seeds you plant, the possibility of at least one seed becoming a tree that bears good fruit, is worth all the disappointments of all the good seeds going to ‘waste’.
Be that person who continues to tend to a good seed planted in yourself even after the one who planted it leaves. Be that person who continues to grow even after multiple vicissitudes that try to uproot your foundation. Be the one who continues to plant a seed even on a plot of land that isn’t quite conducive to growth.
“Plant your garden and decorate your own soul, instead of waiting for someone to bring you flowers.”
— Jose Luis Borges
