“We all need to lead where we are planted and shine where we find ourselves,” Robin Sharma, The Leader With No Title.  Instead of bitching about where we are and what has happened to us, learn to cultivate the area, especially if we can’t change it.  Make it the best we can.  Allow growth to expand from where we are at and tend to what is around us rather than lamenting what we do not have or wishing things were different.  It’s easy to feel trapped where we are at and to feel like the external is keeping us in one spot.  But we have to remember that we always have an option to move, even if it’s learning to bend in a particular direction.  We live in such a strange age now—we simultaneously show the best and worst of society all the time, highlighting all the extremes so we confuse what reality is.  We move too quickly and take in too much garbage and we weigh ourselves down with all that external crap.  We either try to live to mythical, unrealistic expectations and standards or we wallow in the misery of the world. 

It doesn’t have to be that extreme because life exists very much between the two.  The magic is when we are able to simply be—to love our lives as they are and to develop our own sense of space in the world.  See, we tend to spend a lot of time looking elsewhere, either forward or backward, over the fence, or across the street, in the cubicle or office next to us, the car next to us, at the TV, at the vacation the friend took and we build up these skewed versions of what life is like for people.  Life exists beyond what is curated on any media.  The real meat of life, the joy of it, is when we appreciate the moments we have and learn how to work with them and mold it into what we have.  When we tend to our own little bit of Earth, it strengthens, and grows, and blooms in the most beautiful of ways.  Soon it expands and as long as we keep tending it, it will continue to grow until it covers an unimaginable amount of area.  That is the power of developing ourselves.

Instead of the goal being attention, we need to focus on creating and expressing the best of who we are.  Growth doesn’t always look how we think it should—but it is always tied to our actions and efforts, and more importantly, our focus.  Focus on cultivating what is inside of us and on becoming the best versions of who we are.  Don’t let expectations get in the way of appreciating what is right in front of us.  We all have these seeds and we need to cultivate them.  We may not be able to control what they are but we can certainly determine how they grow, and help them grow into the strongest versions of themselves.  And as we do that, we learn how to nurture them and maybe new seeds will come our way.  The garden is what we make it.  We have the ability to do our best with what we have at all times and that is all we need—remember our power to do our best.