You won't believe how ridiculously long our garden hose is. Seriously. 😂 The darn thing is 300 feet; it's a never-ending serpent of irrigation potential. Our current living situation is a bit unique since we're not living on our property where we'll eventually build our home, we're actually in front of it, on Matthias's parents' land.
Last year I had this vision of creating a beautiful garden, right in the very spot where our future home will be, however, there's no water source out there. We'll have to dig a well when the time comes, and in the meantime, we just have the longest hose ever.
It’s not a clear path from the water faucet to our garden. It’s a bushy and overgrown adventure through the forest and over a slightly falling chain-link fence. And to reach the precious faucet to get the water flowing, we have to navigate through bushes that cling to our clothes and scratch our legs. I’m always afraid some snake is going to greet me on this little journey.
Matthias has gone through with a machete and cleared a path for me a couple of times; when he hacks it away, creating a small path it an easy little adventure for a while. But then… nature does it’s work again. Even when the path is cleared the land is eager to reclaim its wild nature.
My thoughts tend to be like that. Unruly and wild, needing constant care and a mental machete to whack out my negativity and poor thinking patterns. It would be so great if I could just decide once the kind of person I want to be and the thinking patterns that align with those values, but it isn’t that simple.
I consider myself an optimist, and I have big dreams and bright visions of the future. But… I'm not always naturally the sunniest person. My thoughts don't always dance with joy, and I don't always have the ideal attitude towards the many things life requires of me.
I've come to accept that being the person I aspire to be requires that conscious decision, repeated over…and over… again and again. These are daily choices. It's not my default mode to choose patience or radiate cheer, but that doesn't mean I can't become a patient person and have a joyful soul.
It just means I have to put in the effort, repeatedly. I wish there was an expiration date to this, a point in time where I could say, "By 2025, I'll have mastered it, and this will come naturally to me." That's not how being human works, right? And you know what? It's an act of love—for myself and for others to keep choosing better, even when it’s not my default.
By resisting my natural tendencies and actively working towards choosing better thoughts, I'm showing compassion to myself and growing in the process.
I know, with each choice I make, with each deliberate act of choosing the person I want to be, and thoughts I want to have, it does become a little easier. Like that path to the faucet… it’s easier to keep up… when we keep it up. And it’s harder to clean up when we go long times without caring for it. Seems to be that the same is true in my head.
Gotta keep up with this work daily.