A Life-changing Lesson I Learned from Gardening

The coronavirus pandemic hit our lives in unexpected ways and brought our lives to a standstill. Frontline health workers took over to face the battle head-on while the rest of us were confined to our homes to stay put and quarantine ourselves. People lost jobs, schools and colleges were closed, factories were shut down and the manufacturing sector came to a halt. But it is said that with every challenge a new opportunity also arises with it.

Though the virus confined us to our homes, we humans, the most adaptive species on the planet found new ways to keep ourselves occupied both mentally and physically. The availability of the internet brought out new ways and means to showcase talents and opened up new avenues to create and attain jobs. TikTok videos went viral unlike before, people resorted to blogging, digital marketing and the list goes on.

Yoga and other forms of meditation were practiced, book lovers dusted and took out the long-forgotten books from their shelves. While some started cooking tasty recipes after watching YouTube videos, others became enthusiastic vloggers. It took a virus, the smallest creature of all living forms to prompt us to do that one activity which we all wanted to do for a long time but had been putting off for so long.

Of all these activities the one which I took on was gardening. No, I do not have a massive garden that boasts of orchards of trees and more trees. There are a few trees in my courtyard but mostly plants and vegetables dominate the area. No, I’m not new to gardening. It’s something which I used to do before,but I always found it to be boring. I used to water plants just for namesake and pray fervently for rains so as to escape from my responsibility. It was one of the tasks my parents assigned to me. However, when I went off to college this duty was allotted to my brother and thus, I escaped.

During the lockdown period when we were literally shut inside our houses I was once again instructed to take up the boring duty of gardening. That was my first task of the day. Trying to imitate what I had done in my past, I poured the least amount of water and got done with it as early as possible. However, after two-three days I realised even after completing it, there was nothing much to do which led me to think I might as well do it properly.

So, on the next day, I cleared my mind and I walked to my garden. I stood under the tree for a moment. I did nothing, didn’t even think about much, I just stood there and looked up. The veined branches with their green leaves soothed my nerves and I felt relaxed. This time I did not rush the process. I took my time and watered my plants and boy, it felt good.

Slowly I developed a fascination for gardening. It became a daily activity that I looked forward to. I took care of them by pulling out the weeds and getting rid of the dried, crumpled leaves. I argued with my father to buy new seeds of vegetables as I could not wait to develop my own vegetable garden. Every minor accomplishment was celebrated. It became an addiction and that was the beginning of a downfall.

I became so ambitious that I started to overdo things. I over-watered the plants as a result of which the leaves drooped and the entire plant dried up. I even added more fertilisers which stunted the growth of the plants and things took a wrong turn. I wanted more yield and more productivity for which I was forcing these plants to yield more than their capability and then I realised my folly.

I was over-ambitious and knew I had to stop. So, I took a step back to analyse the situation. I understood that I had overdone it. When I should have taken it slow and steady, I rushed things and it went out of hand. So, I slowed down.

Water was once again poured to the required amount and minimum amount of fertilizers was added to aid growth. Dried leaves turned green and they finally came back to life. Slowly and gradually the greenery returned and things returned to normal. I had learned my lesson. I learned that when you finally attain the things that you had always dreamt of having you have a tendency to overdo it and things may go downhill from there.

And then I realised that it was the same with people. A steady relationship may go awry in a hurry to take it to the next level leading to forced expression of emotions. Something as simple as communication between two people will become strained and difficult. The same is applicable to a parent-child relationship. If a child shows a hint of progress in something both teachers and parents have an inkling to push them beyond their limits thereby ruining childhood. The happy memories of childhood which should serve as a source of nostalgia till death will cease to exist. They become indifferent to their parents after a certain age and struggle with an identity crisis.

People do not change in an instant. They should not be pushed beyond a certain point. People flourish in an environment where they feel safe and comfortable and not in one where their energy is drained and squeezed and made to feel like they are in an invisible race they should win at no cost. People change for the better when they realise there is a higher purpose in life and they feel working towards it will enable them to become better versions of themselves.

This was one invaluable lesson I learned from gardening and I have not forgotten it since. A smile still escapes my lips when I’m in my garden but I’ve also made a promise to myself not to repeat my mistake. A garden is like a library. You don’t know what you’re looking for until you show the willingness to look for it.