In much the same way, when you’re planning your dream life you can start out by creating a list of everything you want to do. If you try, you’ll end up with a huge mess that will soon be unmanageable. Keep in mind that your garden is a limited space, and you can’t possibly grow everything at once. However, you then need to trim down your list to the plants that you feel are the most important for you to grow. When you’re planning your garden you can start by creating a wish list of everything you want to grow there: tomatoes geraniums pumpkins, watermelons, strawberries, green beans, sweet corn, cucumbers, forget-me-not flowers, zucchini, sunflowers, and on and on. That’s what your life will look like if you don’t create a vision for it. Maybe it’s overgrown, it’s decorated with garden paraphernalia you can’t stand to look at, it has no fruits or vegetables, and you can only find one or two of your favorite flowers. Imagine walking out your back door into a garden that doesn’t look anything like your dream garden. What kind of life do you want to have? What’s your life’s mission? What do you want to achieve? What do you want to do, have, and experience? Just as you should have a vision for your garden, you should have a vision for your life. Instead, you have to ask yourself what type of garden you want, the purpose you want your garden to serve, what you want to grow in your garden, and how you want your garden laid out. You don’t just grab whatever seeds you can get your hands on, throw them around willy-nilly, and hope for the best. When you’re going to plant a garden you have to create a vision for it. Below you’ll find 10 life lessons you can learn from gardening.
I sat down to write and came up with this post on the garden as a metaphor for life. After all, nature is a great teacher and there are many life lessons that can be learned by spending time out in the natural world.
Today I was thinking about that garden and it occurred to me that gardening is a great metaphor for life. I spent many hours out in that garden, climbing trees, picking fruit, playing with my brother and sister, lying on the grass, hiding when I had misbehaved, and chasing our German Shepherd dogs around. In addition, my father had hired a landscape architect who had created a tiny creek complete with a waterfall and a small pond.
The garden had mango trees, blackberry shrubs, rows of corn stalks, a lemon tree, and all kinds of flowers. Although I currently live in an apartment building, I grew up in a house-in Costa Rica–that was surrounded by a large garden.