Watering Plants

I’m trying to figure out a good weekday schedule to water my Tulip. It hasn’t grown yet. That’s the hardest part - trying to make something that doesn’t exist beautiful. It’s frustrating to experience so many plants die before your own hands. Not everyone has a green thumb.

At my first job, I was charged with watering the flowers in the lobby. There were so many pots that I had inherited that weren’t stated anywhere in my job description. I couldn’t keep up with these potted plant schedules, let alone my own. As time progressed at this company, I became weary of my place at this establishment and where I was going in life. In Yoga, I dedicated my practice to becoming aware of complacency and how to maneuver with that notion throughout life. To be efficacious in one’s practice means taking steady breaths on the street and the mat.  Each day, I’d walk in the office and the plants looked at me sadly. I’d glance back with the same sentiments.

There wasn’t anything appealing about them, sitting on the window ledge, hanging out on coffee tables.  Everyone who entered the office had something to say about these sad looking plants, and what I should be doing to them. But who really cared about these potted plants anyways? They were supposed to survive indoors, and I was convinced my once-a-week watering schedule would suffice. Consequently, their leaves started drying out, and on days I was absent playing hooky for facials, they died a little bit more. And so did my empathy for my job. I tried to bring them back to life! Nurtured them with jugs of water, but nothing peaked!

Day by day, I’d be surrounded by dying plants, and so too, my ambition, was dying within this place as well. It wasn’t until those last days in that office when I trashed the last potted plant. Like my own track record, it too was trash. Slowly, I started throwing away stuff around my office until nothing was left and I didn’t even receive farewell flowers from my colleagues on my final day at that company.

Our first jobs, first loves, first apartments, first interactions are just an afterthought as we wander through life like a broken compass. Trying to make nothing out of something is like watering plants.

Through this so-called journey of our twenty-somethings, a lot of silly things happen. Frustration is inevitable. It’s when wishes do not align with the most current and recognizable reality. Then comes anger, and emotions. But really, what is anger? Pull it apart. Think about it a lot and you may just become angry again. But, does it not feel the same way as frustration? Because that is precisely why when we don’t get our way, we become angry and frustrated, and irrational. Like a friend of mine said, even if we owe thousands of dollars to said bill collector, are you not going to eat?

And are they not going to take these twenty dollars from your last fifty?

Perhaps we are raising the bar too high with social media, materialistic items, things that appear to be pretty, which automatically help define what success looks like. We become too serious with carving out our own brick roads.

It wasn’t until I noticed my ‘seriousness’ when a friend said he was collecting the business cards I gave him every time we would hang out. It wasn’t that I was always switching jobs, or had some important title though. It was the fact that I had new business cards with unknown titles, a piece of card to make pretty, another item to ogle over in my purse, a game of show and tell, a conversation starter, really just trash on my bedroom floor. Its things like these that are becoming obsolete in a world full of items and eternal digital presence. Accumulation used to mean longevity. Now with minimalism becoming more attractive, the invasion of microchips and apps, a telephone book is no longer a vital entity for your phone stand - which is also irrelevant.  

So as we-you-I contemplate the arduous task of the infamous next move, when the seasons have changed, it’s only natural to figure out what to do next that will cohesively align with your passions - or whatever makes you fucking happy.  

Until that becomes the norm, I still have to figure out a plant schedule for the overpriced tulips I bought at Whole Foods. To try really hard to take all the natural elements and make something beautiful grow.

Editor's Note: This was originally shared via email (sent at 3AM) amongst a group of about 50 friends and colleagues. The responses to this manifesto were heartwarming. I decided to publish it in Violet Summer Zine, available on Amazon, and I wanted to share with other people who may not be so familiar with my writing or my intentions. Hope you enjoyed the read!