Are you clipping or cultivating?
We all have the urge to possess, but the deeper wisdom lies in learning to cultivate.
Let me tell you a story…
Every day, rain or shine, the gardener tended to his garden with quiet devotion.
He especially cherished one gardenia. From bud to bloom, he nurtured her with care, pruning gently, even enduring her fragility with patience.
Each week, he clipped a bouquet of flowers to bring home. But never this gardenia. She noticed.
One day, she finally spoke:
“I notice every day you show up and show me care… and yet when it’s time to leave, you pick other flowers to take with you.
Why not me?”
The gardener paused, then replied:
“My gardenia, to bring you with me would bring me joy. Your fragrance would fill my home,
but only for a time. Soon your petals would bruise, and your roots would ache for sun.”
“But if I’m your gardenia, shouldn’t I be with you?”
He smiled gently.
“You already are. Not in a vase, but here, where you can keep blooming. Where I can appreciate you as you are meant to be.”
And so, rain or shine, he kept tending her, not for what he could take, but for what she could become.
🌿 Not everything is meant to be owned.
Some things are meant to be honored —
rooted where they are, free to bloom fully.
Know the difference between being someone’s bloom of the day and being their forever bloom.
🌱And to the gardeners:
Are you truly tending a garden,
or simply collecting flowers?
What have you learned about holding space for the people or possibilities you care about most?
