Sooooo what happened to the Charlie Brown tree you ask? All scraggly and anorexic looking? Well, it has grown up very nicely. We built a ring around the tree shaped like a bean. I put potted plants within the ring, and then we ran a drip system to the tree to water it and the plants. All it needed was a little love and care.
Don't we all just need a little love and care in order to thrive and grow? I could have given up on the tree. Actually, I was given the choice. "We can ripe out the tree and plant a new one," he said. I couldn't do it. It had a right to survive. It had a right to try. I'm so glad I said no. Almost immediately it started to do better as if to prove me right.
Giving up is just not in my nature. It's not the way I was raised. Sure there have been challenges. Sure there were times when I just wanted to give up. My first marriage should have ended sooner than it did, but I was brought up with the ethic that you don't just give up when the going gets rough. You work at it and give it your all. You stick with your committment. Today I think people are too easily giving up when things don't work out the way they think they should. Sure in the end, the marriage didn't work out, but at least I can say that I tried and gave it my all. There is no shame in that.
I guess I'm just stubborn that way. Giving up is actually too easy. It's being a coward in my eyes. I was a single parent for most of my life. So it wasn't always just about me either. If I had given up, how would that have affected them? What would I have taught them? Advice of the day: sometimes things get hard in life, but don't give up. You never know when life will turn out just right!
No comments:
Post a Comment