Growth Through Change

“When a choice plant . . . became root bound and began to deteriorate, Wade told me I needed to transplant him into a larger container.”

Growth Through Change

My daughter, Annie, left to chase her dreams last week; she’s the last of our three to have done so.  The event made my wife look like a Hollywood Star as she took shelter behind huge sunglasses so as to hide her flowing tears during the trek to the airport.  It is a momentous change in our lives.

There is nothing so unchanging or as inevitable as change itself.  The things we see, touch, and feel are always changing.  Annie has noticed this very acutely as outlined in her text messages to me from New York this entire weekend.  Relationships between friends, husband and wife, father and daughter, sister and sister are all dynamic, changing relationships.  It is a constant that allows us to use change for our own good.

I can’t think of anything that describes this process of change better than an experience with my friend Wade Anderson.  He and his wife Regina own Tooele Valley Nursery.  I rely on them to help me plan, execute and correct problems in my landscape.

“When a choice plant”, Fred the Fern, “became root bound and began to deteriorate, Wade told me I needed to transplant him into a larger container.”

I rescued Fred from an office more than 35 years ago.  Someone had thrown him in the trash thinking he was a goner.  I could see that there was still life in him and as a result, he’s provided me with joy for more than half my life!

Wade told me I needed to put Fred’s pot upside down, pull the plant out, shake the soil from the roots, and clip and pull all the stragglers from the root system.  Then I got a much larger pot, and following Wade’s directions; I vigorously pushed the soil tightly around the plant.  Soon, Fred took on a whole new life and has grown to be huge!

Perhaps too often in life we set our own roots into the soil and become root bound.  We may treat ourselves too gently and defy anyone to disturb the soil or trim our root system back.  When that happens we, just like Fred the Fern, must struggle to make progress.  Change is hard!  It can be rough!

But, we need not feel that we must always be what we are right now.  If you’re like me you have a tendency to think of change as the enemy.  Many of us are suspect of change and will often fight and resist it before we have even discovered what the actual effects will be.  When the change is thought though carefully, it can produce the most rewarding and profound experiences in life.  I look at my daughters and realize that they are the reflected beauty of this important truth.

Through my daughters, I’ve noticed that as opportunity for change reaches into our lives, as it always will, we must ask, “Where do I need development? What do I want out of life? Where do I want to go?  How can I get there?”  Weighing alternatives very carefully is a much-needed prerequisite as one plans changes.  We are usually free to choose the changes we make in our lives and we are always free to choose how we will respond to the changes that come.

Yes, there is pain in change, but there is great satisfaction in recognizing that progress is being achieved.  Knowing this keeps me from driving to the airport and getting on a plane to New York or Arkansas right now!  Life is a series of hills and valleys, or pots, and often the best growth comes in the valleys.

I’m sitting here with Fred the Fern.  He’s been with me since before my marriage, though the birth of my daughters and is here now in fanned glory to remind me that even though my girls have departed and there are many changes to come, I can evoke the greatest discovery to welcome the coming change.

William James once said, “The greatest discovery of my generation is that we can change our circumstances by changing our attitudes of mind.”  Will our minds tell us that change is our enemy?  Or, will our minds tell us change is a reflection of beauty yet to behold?