Gardening Again

It's time for another gardening post (I can only go so long without creating planting metaphors, I've found). 

This morning as I was about to leave for the office, I found out that my first phone call of the day had been cancelled, so I suddenly had a little extra time on my hands. Plants!  I'd just gotten a shipment from Wayside Gardens, and I could plant them.

Perfect weather for planting: cool, moist, a little overcast.  I opened the box and was thrilled to find three Summersweet bushes, three dwarf lilacs, and three campanulas.  I spent a few minutes thinking about them: their ultimate size and shape, whether or not they're fragrant, what color their flowers are and when they bloom, what kind of light and moisture they need, what purpose I wanted them to serve.  I envisioned where I wanted them to be, given all that.  I laid them out, and thought a bit about whether there would be any problems with my design. Given the ultimate size of the Summersweet bushes (that's a picture of one, above), I moved them a little farther apart. Then I got a trowel from the garage and planted everything.

I planted them quickly but carefully, enjoying the feel of mulch and dirt on my hands, the rich scent of topsoil, the tender, hopeful green of the new leaves. Then I stood back and observed my work; I smiled.

Later, while I was driving to work, I realized how satisfying to me that whole arc had been: reflecting on what I had to work with, thinking about what I wanted to create, making sure to correct for any problems, then executing my plan.

And that, friends, leads me to my assertion of the day:  I'm becoming convinced that there's something in most of us that's actually wired for being strategic.  When we create a hope for the future, and act practically to achieve it, and when that hope becomes a reality -- we love it.

What do you think?  

Comments

[Wally Bock]

Congratulations! This post was selected as one of the five best business blog posts of the week in my Three Star Leadership Midweek Review of the Business Blogs.

http://blog.threestarleadership.com/2008/10/01/10108-a-midweek-look-at-the-business-blogs.aspx

Wally Bock

[Erika Andersen]

Wally, you've just made my day!

Thank you so much --

xo
Erika