Bloom Where You Are Planted

Have you ever felt like you were meant for something bigger in life, like you have some kind of greatness inside you and that you would surely take the leap into your destiny, if only you knew what that destiny was?

Do you imagine a life where you are successful, admired, respected, or maybe even famous but there again, you feel there is still that hidden piece of the puzzle- that unknown magical element that needs to be in place in order for your dream to come true?

I mean why would anyone want to live just an ordinary life? Who would possibly choose to live how you are living right now? Well the answer to that is – you.

You are where you are, in this moment in time, because you have made choices over your lifetime that got you here. Whether you consciously made the decisions or whether you didn’t make any decisions at all, your actions, or inactions, put you exactly where you are right now.

Not happy in this place? Well the good news is, you are blessed with the free will and the ability to make new choices. Just make some new, better ones, commit to them and move on. Except, if it was that easy, wouldn’t you have done that a long time ago?

Or maybe, just maybe, where you’re at right now in your life ain’t so bad after all. What if the life you currently have is actually perfectly fine, and what if all that is needed in order to have this imagined bigger life, the one that proves you have greatness inside you and that brings you respect, admiration and hey why not, even an element of notoriety, and all that is required is to make the best out of this life you have now.

I’ll let you in on a secret, perhaps it’s even that missing piece of the puzzle that you have been searching for forever. The secret is, it has always been available, right inside of you.

“If I ever go looking for my heart’s desire again, I won’t look any further than my own back yard.

Dorothy Gale from the Wizard of Oz

Here’s another question for you. How would your life change if you made the choice to make the most of the life you have right now?

What would happen if you decided to give 110% everyday to what you currently do for a living. How would your relationships change if you gave them your full attention and showed up with honesty and love?  What I am really asking you to consider is to take this current life of yours and bring it to its highest potential.

Right now, you are exactly where you are meant to be. You need to bloom where you are planted because if you can’t bring the current life you have right now to it’s highest potential, you will never be able to make the leap into a better one.

Have you ever seen a flower thrive in a crack of pavement? It does not know that it should be in a flower box adorning the front step of a beautiful house or in a master gardener’s finely curated flower bed where it can be admired and celebrated, all it knows is that it needs to thrive and bloom to the best of its ability right there, where it first germinated.

That’s the secret sauce, we need to look inside ourselves and get to know who we really are. We need to dive deeply into our soul and see the true essence of what we are made of, to see the seed that was germinated within us, because that is our true potential, that is our greatness. Then, if we take the life we have right now and not only make the most of it, but bring it to the highest expression we can make of it by giving it our very best effort, we really will be living our best life.

Greatness, you see, is in the eye of the beholder. Jennie Butchart and her husband lived beside the lime stone quarry that they owned and mined. Lime is used in making Portland cement.  In 1912 the quarry was exhausted but Jennie had a plan. She wanted to created a garden out of the remaining pit. Talk about a flower blooming  in cement, today that pit is the renowned Sunken Gardens of the world famous Butchart Gardens on Vancouver Island. Jennie chose to live her destiny right where she herself was planted and now today, millions of folks from all over the world, visited her legacy every year.

The beginning of the garden.

Sunken Garden today

 The world famous Sunken Gardens at the beginning of construction and now, today.

The restrictions that are being enforce on the vast majority of us during this pandemic to stay home, or shelter in place are, in reality, an opportunity to learn this very lesson because in order for us to continue to grow and move forward in our current situation, we must look inside ourselves and take stock of the internal resources available to us. The gift is that most of the outside distractions have been removed from our everyday lives. So it’s easier to sift through what options are left available for us.

“Necessity is the mother of invention.

Plato

Having choices taken away from us can be a real motivator, especially when paired with mind numbing, endless boredom. The resulting effect, if directed positively can bring about creativity. What better formula to bloom into your real potential genius.

Remember that flower thriving in the crack in the pavement that I mentioned above? It would be pretty hard not to notice it as you pass by, because the contrast between the surrounding grey cement and the colourful beauty of the single bloom would be so striking, that the flower’s expression of it’s potential would seem even more amazing than if it was competing in a bed of similar posies.

You are meant to bloom into the best expression of yourself. We all are. But it is not the garden that makes the flower, it is the flowers ability to thrive in what ever situation it finds itself germinated in that makes it express it greatness. So whether you find yourself in the cement crack of life or a finely tilled garden bed but competing with a vast sea of other amazing posies, bloom the best that you can and you will find that you will have truly shown the greatness that was always germinating inside of you.