“Don’t judge each day by the harvest you reap but by the seeds that you plant.” — Robert Louis Stevenson, Scottish novelist, poet, essayist and travel writer
My mother has a green thumb.
She can grow anything anywhere and has proven it time and again by growing lush and vibrant crops in soil and conditions others would consider unfavourable or downright impossible.
Mom always planted a large garden — a huge undertaking but essential to tide us over long and often harsh winters.
Years later, when large gardens became unneeded, she put her green thumb to work creating vibrant and healthy flower beds.
Each year, Mom’s flower beds burst with colour and character garnering much praise from visitors.
Mom told me that you grow a great garden or create a beautiful flowerbed by being aware of everything that’s emerging from the soil — the seeds and bulbs you planted and the ones that planted themselves by whatever means.
Birds and animals may have inadvertently deposited seeds and such into the soil and often the soil itself contains a variety of seeds and impurities.
Certainly, your focus is on the intended plants and the care and nurturing of each, but you must also be aware of the weeds.
Ignore the weeds and they may overrun the choice plants.
Think of your belief system as a garden or flower bed.
You want to nurture and grow those beliefs, values and perceptions that support you and move you in a positive direction, but you must also be aware of beliefs, values and perceptions that damage, the weeds that send you off in unhealthy directions and cause you to, often unconsciously, sabotage your best efforts.
A few decades back, American best-selling author and motivator Earl Nightingale released a recording that introduced people to a simple yet powerful “secret” that claimed to spell the difference between success and failure. Nightingale called his recording, The Strangest Secret – As Ye Sow, So Shall Ye Reap.
Below is a partial transcript of that recording.
“The human mind is much like a farmer’s land. The land gives the farmer a choice.
He may plant in that land whatever he chooses. The land doesn’t care what is planted.
It’s up to the farmer to make the decision.
The mind, like the land, will return what you plant, but it doesn’t care what you plant!
If the farmer plants two seeds — one a seed of corn, the other nightshade, a deadly poison — and waters and takes care of the land, what will happen? Remember, the land doesn’t care. It will return poison in just as wonderful abundance as it will corn.
So up come the two plants: one corn, one poison.
As it’s written in the Bible, “As ye sow, so shall ye reap.”
The human mind is far more fertile, far more incredible and mysterious than the land, but it works the same way.
It doesn’t care what we plant: success or failure, a concrete, worthwhile goal or confusion, misunderstanding, fear, anxiety and so on. What we plant, it must return to us.”
Acknowledging that good beliefs drive us in the direction of happiness and achievement of our dreams, it becomes vital to weed our minds of noxious beliefs that create an opposite outcome.
We tend to think of success or failure as the result of current conditions and present actions, but that is seldom the case.
What happens to you today is likely the result of “thought” seeds planted years, even decades ago — emerging into our present moment at an inopportune time.
You create a successful life in the same way you create a successful garden or flower bed: by first preparing the soil, planting the right seeds, tending them and ultimately, reaping a bountiful harvest.
If you plant the right thought seeds and tend to them accordingly, you will reap the benefits of happiness, success and abundance in most, if not all, areas of your life.
You cannot grow an abundant crop if you plant seeds in desolate soil or if you choose to plant a variety of poor quality seeds.
Most of us plant a variety of seeds — some good, some not so — and wonder why our planting bears less than satisfactory results.
Some of our thought seeds were actually planted for us by our families and the cultures in which we were raised.
Here’s something else to consider about past experiences — especially negative, hurtful ones.
Each is a seed, a plant waiting to emerge within our lives.
Each time you recall such an event and re-experience the negative emotion or anger that is tagged to it, you are — metaphorically speaking — watering, shining the sun and coaxing that thought seed into full expression.
American inspirational author and publisher, Linus Mundy once wrote, “Planting tiny seeds in the small space given you can change the whole world or, at the very least, your view of it.”
You may not have a green thumb like my mother, but you can grow a lush and healthy crop of happiness, joy and success by carefully tending to the fertile soil of your mind.
“Step aside, non-believers, ’cause I’m going to make it rain!”
Murray Fuhrer is a local self-esteem expert and facilitator. His new book is entitled Extreme Esteem: The Four Factors. For more information on self-esteem, check the Extreme Esteem website at www.extremeesteem.ca