Gardening Habit # 2: Gardens are Cultivated, Not Completed.
I have never heard a gardener say the phrase: “I completed my garden for this season.” I tell myself this fact when I start to feel the tug of guilt over leaving something undone. Just like a garden, my life is cultivated, and to bring something to an endpoint only means the inevitable unravelling of something else. Gardening is a constant and ongoing practice that is never “done.” Adopting this attitude in all areas of life would mean living in a more open and intentional way, living more for the process than the product.
Living in a culture where we are so productivity-oriented and goal-oriented, gardening feels like a deprogramming. The habits I learn with my hands in dirt has been so critical to teaching me how to slow down across all domains of my life. Life is not a series of tasks that need to be completed with linear, unceasing growth. Life is so much more like a garden. It is seasonal, dynamic, growing, changing, dying, and flourishing.
When I create a to-do list (which is always, because I am lost without one) I have to remind myself that this list will never ever actually be completed. This sounds like a bummer: but actually, it is an invitation to let go. I don’t have to work until everything is done, because everything can never be done. Just like in a garden, I have to realize that my work must be tended to, rather than completed. There will always be more to do—that is the point. Each day I am moving in the direction of growth, clearing out things that no longer serve me, and planting new things for the future. It isn’t a list to be done, it is work to be tended and nurtured.
Tending and nurturing the work of my life does not mean that my life is always pretty. It may mean that my house is not clean. My kid’s bag is going to be missing something at daycare. I am going to overlook things and make mistakes. But moving away from perfectionism and a linear view of productivity means that I have room for these errors. I can learn from each mistake and learn new systems-based approaches to improve. In the garden, my tomatoes may die because I watered them every day and the roots grew shallow. I have a choice here to either give up and never plant a tomato again, or I can take each season as a lesson to be a better gardener. Each time I leave a task incomplete or overlook something, I have the option to see myself as a failure and feel guilt—or I can take a look at the situation, regroup, and figure out a way to grow and learn.
Maybe my house is not clean because I have unrealistic expectations of myself and the people around me. Maybe nurturing my life may require accepting my current reality rather than pushing myself past what is possible. Maybe my kid’s bag was missing something at daycare because I overslept after an exhausting day and was running late. Maybe I need to build in more rest time. Tending and nurturing my life means seeing all things as opportunities for learning and growing.
Each season of life, just like each season in a garden, is a teacher if we are willing and open to learning the lesson.
-Katie Chapin, LCSW
