“Being negative only makes a difficult journey more difficult. You may be given a cactus, but you don’t have to sit on it.”
We get a bad deal, dive head first into its onslaught and follow our natural instinct to pull ourselves down into its abyss. It’s the classic, “oh, woe is me” approach. All of sudden, we can’t see more than four feet in front of our faces, and thus, our entire vision is tunneled into whatever is so “terrible” that is happening to us.
If you didn’t know too much about cacti, like me, you’d probably think it wasn’t a very fun plant. It’s rigid, it’s spiny, and it’s just plain uninviting. Nothing good here.
But, if you took the time to get to know that cactus, you’d find out some interesting things you wouldn’t have expected. You’d learn that its spines help prevent water loss; you’d learn that the specialized structure that produces its spines also bloom flowers and; you’d learn that beneath it all, there is an extensive root system which enable the cactus to thrive in the most toughest of conditions. But, I digress. This isn’t a lesson in the study of botanomics.
What it is though, is a study in seeing the big picture. And, the big picture is you and the universe. Not, you VERSUS the universe but you AND the universe, working together, whether you know it or not. The cosmos is always conspiring to put you on your path. It’s like a clandestine auto-pilot. We think we might be getting a prickly cactus, but we’re really getting what’s beneath that inhospitable exterior. We can either choose to have a seat on the thing and make it worse, or we can choose to eventually see the flowers blossom and marvel at its unseen ability to give itself life.
The universe doesn’t want to drag you down and make life difficult. But, it does want you to learn a little as you go. It wants you to be able to find the Love in every situation you face (which, don’t get me wrong, I waiver on from time to time. Case in point, hearing another absolutely ridiculous sounding 4-cylinder muffler drive by as I type this. Like, what am I supposed to learn from being completely annoyed by those things?).
Nonetheless, choose to Love the prickly spines, and ask yourself, “why am I facing this? What will it help me learn? and, “how can I embrace this?” And, it’s okay if you don’t have the answers. Just asking the questions puts you in a position to receive what you need to receive. Let yourself have faith that Love is on your side, albeit sometimes disguised as few bumps and bruises. But, they’re really only bumps and bruises if we choose for them to be.
If we choose to embrace that cactus, give it our Love, let it grow, become stronger and bloom its flowers, we’ll learn the lessons we need to learn. And, sometimes it may happen overnight, but other times, it may seem to take forever. Sometimes, we might need to put all of our energy and effort into it, while in other instances, we might just need to send our Love from a distance and let it do its thing.
Everything wants to grow into something beautiful regardless of its exterior. Choose to find the beauty.
be Love.
Cactus is my 2nd favorite flower and my favorite is plum blossom, which is because cactus can survive in the desert and plum blossom can blossom in the winter; i.e. they both can survive in the harsh environment. I like plum blossom better because I like winter Back home, people say the good luck and bad luck is 50/50 in your life. Things can never go the way as we wanted (i.e. we can never get everything as we wanted). Although we always say to others “all the best”, “I wish everything will be fine”, etc., but we all know it is impossible for everything to be fine. So we all have to experience ups and downs, and it is just a matter of when. Yes that we don’t have to sit on it, and we should face and deal with it. Life is not easy for anyone, and we all have our own problems/issues. No one’s life is perfect and the imperfection has made what is called life. Perfection only exists in fairy tale. Thus, we either act positively & give a big smile to whatever we are going to face or act negatively. Those issues are going to be what it is, just like those cacti are going to look like the way they are. It is up to us of how we look at them and how to deal with them. I believe by giving some time, we will see the positive side of each subject (because each subject and experience has both good and bad side and it seems always hard to see the good side). Quoting from Winston Churchill “A pessimist sees the difficulty in every opportunity; and an optimist sees the opportunity in every difficulty”. A pessimists only focuses on the spines of the cacti, but an optimist can see the benefits of the cacti in our daily life.
Speaking of flowers, it is like meeting people. In our life, we meet people we like just like getting roses; but we also get cacti. It is not cacti’s fault that they are full with spines; it is their nature that they can’t change. All we can change is our attitude towards them. Everyone has their good and bad aspects, and it is hard to see the good aspects of the people that we don’t like.
We don’t have to sit on the spines, but even for some reasons, we end up being hurt by the spines, the pain will go away eventually. Trust me, no matter how hurt you are at that moment, you will be able to talk about it with smile in the future.
Be love and take care!
I agree. It’s difficult to do, but we must always remember and trust that our Heart is bigger than anything that can happen to us. We can choose to be bigger and choose to see the positive in any and every situation and person that enters our life.
🙂