A Tree That Couldn’t Leave The Ground

 

Have you ever seen a large tree that didn’t grow vertically, but instead grew parallel to the ground? Just a tree bent at its trunk, leaning over and growing in length but not in height. If you haven’t, you’re in good company. Neither have. That would look odd, as if something were wrong with the tree. The tree was not growing as it should. A tree is supposed to start as a seed that lays strong roots intertwined so tight into the soil that it cannot be easily uprooted. Then the tree develops in that soil, growing until one day, it breaks through the ground it was planted in. It continues to grow upward into what we are accustomed to seeing, going on to serve its purpose (baring fruit, leaves, etc.).

 

Everything has a purpose, and it looks out of place when it does not function the way it was designed to. My question to you is do you look out of place? Do you look like a tree that couldn’t leave the ground, and instead grew alongside the ground? We should all be growing into the person we were designed to be, but don’t be mistaken, growth merely for the sake of growing isn’t enough. Like the tree, we were all placed in an environment (some better than others), and we grew because of it with beliefs, morals, values, knowledge, experiences and other people that shape us. Now, imagine if you never grew up. Not so much physically, but personally. Imagine if you never left the soil that you were planted or raised in, and just grew alongside of it. Sure, you’re still a tree, but you were designed for more.

 

Everything that we started off with is not meant to stay with us for our entire lives. If the tree never leaves the soil, it will never touch the sky. Don’t try to hold onto things for longer than necessary. Even if it’s the soil you grew up in, let it serve its purpose and then keep growing. Many of us want to hold on to what we have out of a sense of comfort. But holding on to something while you are supposed to be growing will only hold you back. What is meant to stay in your life will stay, and what is meant to should be allowed to leave. You have so much potential inside of you. Don’t waste it by holding on to things that served their purposes in your development, but cannot stay with you as you continue to go. In other words, don’t hold onto the soil when you’re supposed to be standing 100 feet tall. You’ll just end up pulling yourself down.

 

Lastly, realize that no person controls the future. We cannot control every detail of our future, from where we will end up to how we will get there. I say that because when something does not go our way, the first thought is that we failed in some way and delayed our goals. But a goal is a destination with many roads that lead to it. Just because you had to take a side street or an alley, make a u-turn, sit in traffic, or wait from someone to tow you off the road to a mechanic does not mean failure. It’s a part of the journey.

 

Too many of us think that if we didn’t reach our goal the exact way we believe it should have been reached, we did something wrong. We try to achieve this idealistic view of perfection, where a mistake was never made and everything went according to “the plan”. I can tell you that things rarely ever go according to this plan that people speak of. Perfection is not never missing the mark. Perfection is achieving the goal even though you missed the mark. And who set the mark? Usually the mark is set by what we saw someone else do that reached the same or similar goal we’re after, what we heard someone say that we believe knows what they are talking about, or what we believe we should do.

 

The best advice I can give you is this, “Stop trying to get there perfectly, and just get there”. Don’t worry about the twists and the turn, and just grow into all of who you are purposed to be.