By Darrel L. Hammon
Fixing up our yards parallels with shaping up our lives.
Don’t you just love sprucing up your yard so that it looks great to anyone who happens to walk or drive by? The challenge is that many of our yards have become a bit archaic, debris-filled, and plain, with more than a few weeds cropping up in places they should not be. People do not take a second look. In fact, they do not even look at all. There is nothing that makes our yards stand out.
Many of us have lost our pizazz to keep our yards looking nice, presentable, and colorfully breathtaking. What’s exciting is to take a plain old yard and turn it into something incredible so that when the neighbors walk by they come to an abrupt halt so they can admire it with that phenomenal-can’t-take-my-eyes-off-your-yard look. Some even ask to use your backyard for family gatherings and weddings.
Our lives, like our yards, need a bit—and sometimes a lot—of sprucing up. Over time, we have neglected various parts of our lives, and personal weeds spring up in places they should not be. So, what will it take to make our lives a showcase, perhaps not necessarily to others but, more importantly, to ourselves and our families?
How does sprucing up our lives compare with sprucing up our yards? And what are some of the best ways to jazz up our lives? Let’s compare, using garden language.
Digging About
Digging about basically means you have to find the spot around the trees, dig around it to loosen the soil so water has a way to seep into the roots, remove any of the weeds that might be there, or ready the soil in a place you want to plant something. In our lives, our digging about is similar. We must find those patches in our lives that need space to grow and develop, perhaps areas that need renovation or enhancement and, in some cases, complete removal.
Pruning and Clipping
Often, pruning and clipping become challenging things to do. It is not easy to lop off a branch that needs it or clip a tree or a bush way back so the new growth can come and the old parts are removed. Sometimes, when we are done with the pruning and the clipping, we think that we have killed the plant. Amazingly, in the spring or sooner, plants begin to grow in ways that they would not have if we had not pruned and clipped the old, dying, and decaying pieces off. So, too, it is with our own lives. We need to prune and clip those parts that are decaying or holding us back from achieving our goals. You may have to step back and truly contemplate those areas that need some help. Someone you trust may be able to offer some suggestions.
Planning and Organizing
Planning is essential to having an incredible yard or garden. You should develop a blueprint that shows where the plants are going to go, which plants need the sun or those that need shade, to create a sense of artistic beauty everywhere. The same occurs in our own lives. We should develop a plan of where we want to go, why we want to go there, and how we are going to get there. Being strategic with your life and how you want it to go is important and imperative; it will help you develop a sense of accomplishment. My suggestion is to always develop a personal strategic plan of what components you need to have in your life to achieve your goals and objectives. When you write them down, you are committed to completing them and feel more accountable for your actions.
Planting
For the most part, I know what I want to plant in our flower beds or in our garden. Over years of trial and error and living in different parts of the world with varying climates and rainfall, we have discovered you have to plan on planting the right seeds and plants to be successful gardeners. If not, you will have a disaster. Our lives are the same. We all come from different backgrounds, we have different experiences, we possess different skills and talents, and we understand things differently. The “plantings” in our lives need to have some semblance of what we want to do. Often, the planting of seeds takes time. They just do not spout overnight—although some weeds do! All of us have to ask: “What seeds should I be planting in my life that will help me obtain my goals and propel me to be a healthy and successful person?” Once we know that, then we plan on what needs to be planted or changed.
Nurturing and Nourishing
Nurturing and nourishing plants and trees takes time and energy. You do not want to drown them, and you definitely do not want to kill them because they do not have enough to drink. You have to love your plants and trees enough to know what they need and when they need it. Does that sound familiar to you about your life? With frequency, we can over nurture and nourish ourselves in our lives and even the lives of our children. We want to grow and develop and become stronger, and we also want to pull out and delete the weeds of our lives that have impeded our growth and development along the way. It is only through nurturing and nourishing that we enhance our lives and live them the way we want to.
Fertilizing
I grew up in the country, so our fertilizer was manure from our animals—pigs, chickens, cows, horses, etc. The key was to allow the manure to mature before using it. Chicken manure is high in nitrogen. Manure has to be “composted” so it has the right materials to boost the growth of plants. Fertilizer is imperative for things to grow. Some people pile on the Miracle Grow or some facsimile of it. The key hinges on mixing the right amount of fertilizer into the dirt and plants to allow the roots to mature and grow and become strong, which in turn allows the green growth on top to do the same. Similarly, we have to add the right nutrients and fertilizers into our lives. Often, we also need to eliminate those things that jeopardize our goals and our growth. What may seem good to add to our lives may not be what it needs at the exact moment of our growth cycle—physical, mental, spiritual, etc. Be cautious and fertilize only those components that will help you achieve your goals. Eliminate the rest.
Having Hope for Growth
Farmers are some of the most hopeful people on the planet. They prepare the soil, plant their crops, pray they have enough rain, and then work hard. They go out every single day, no matter the weather, no matter what needs to be done, no matter the challenges seem to mount for them. They just go and do and hope—hope that everything they planted will grow, hope that the markets will treat them fairly, and hope that they will survive another year. Yes, they have good years and bad years, but they continue to plow forward. Our lives should be filled with hope, too! Hope that what we are doing will propel us forward with our goals. Hope gives us more light and happiness. The more light we receive, the better we will feel. We need to hope that something good will occur in our lives.
Seeing the Bigger Picture
With anything, it is good to see the larger picture before beginning the pruning, digging, and fertilizing. You have to picture in your mind’s eye what it is that you want to achieve in your yard and in your life. The adage, “If you can see it, you can achieve it,” is relevant. Our planning will help us see what we want to achieve. Everything is on paper. We know what we want our yards to look like. When organizing and planning our lives, we also need to see the larger picture. What is it we want to become? Granted, some things change along the way. Sometimes, we have to regroup or replan some aspect of our lives. No matter the situation, we still need to see and focus on the bigger picture. Often, though, we place the minutia of our lives so close in our line of vision as to obstruct the bigger picture. That is where the digging, pruning, and clipping come in. We need to use those components in order to clean the debris from our lives so we can see the path we have set for ourselves.
Now, the sprucing can begin because you know the path and the tools to do it. Happy gardening!
Darrel L. Hammon has been dabbling in writing in a variety of genres since his college days, having published poetry, academic and personal articles/essays, a book titled Completing Graduate School Long Distance (Sage Publications), and a picture book, The Adventures of Bob the Bullfrog: Christmas Beneath a Frozen Lake (Outskirts Press). He also was the editor of the Journal of Adult Education (Mountain Plains Adult Education Association). Most of his essay/article writing has focused on topics about growing up, leadership, self-awareness, motivation, marriage/dating, and educational topics. Some of these articles/essays are in Spanish because Darrel is bilingual in Spanish/English, having lived in Chile, Dominican Republic, and southern California, and having worked with Latino youth and families all of his professional life in higher education. He has two blogs, one for personal writing at http://www.darrelhammon.blogspot.com/ and one for his consulting/life coaching business (http://www.hammonconsults.blogspot.com/). You can listen to a poem titled “Sprucing Up” here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ihTmuOUIAEI.