Why Water The Weeds?

It doesn't take an expert gardener to realize that my garden is just a wee bit overgrown and could use some major weeding.

I've been gone most of the summer and with what little time resources I have, I've been doing other trivial things - like paying bills, cooking, cleaning, school shopping, working, etc. I don't feel terribly badly about it, but looking at the flower beds, something kind of profound hit me.

All summer the sprinkler was set to water everything in the back all at once.  It was the easiest way to make sure everything got wet.  And of course, "everything" included the weeds.  Look at 'em.  They're thriving as they choke out my flowers.  Heck you can barely even see the flowers as the weeds are totally taking over.

And as I looked at how the weeds were thriving, it occurred to me:  Don't Water The Weeds!

What grows?  That which you invest your time in, pay attention to, nurture, and nourish.  Hmmmm.

I have limited time, money, energy and stamina.  I need to focus my limited resources where they are going to make the best possible impact in my life, and in my son's life.  I need to take a look at where I am putting my time, money and energy.  Am I mindlessly "watering the weeds?"  Heck yeah!

I'm not saying that every minute of every day needs to be spent on task, working toward a specific goal.  But I can demonstrate whole days that blew by me whilst Googling and learning all about interesting yet  useless information, or flinging angry birds across the screen, or hitting refresh 100 times to see if someone responded to my fascinating facebook post.  In other words, I have been, at times, watering the weeds.

The same can be said of relationships.  Am I watering and feeding the healthy ones?  I'm not sure that I am.  I know for certain I have invested some of my limited time and resources on relationships that do not add to my life, do not nourish me, and do not bring me closer to peace, happiness or a better place.  And instead of letting them go, I think that by adding enough water they'll stop being weeds and turn into flowers.  I'm not a botanist, but I don't think it scientifically works that way.

Well, moving forward, I want to be more aware of how I am spending my time, my finances, my energy and my heart.  I want to do a little more weeding and make better choices in my Life's Garden. I want to kind of map it out.  See what I have, what I should take care of, what I need to weed out, and become more aware of how I'm spending my resources.  That leads right into planning and goal setting, which I will save for another day.  For today, I'm going to just be mindful of how I am spending my time and money, because you can't fix what you don't acknowledge and you can't acknowledge what you don't even allow yourself to see!

And what I see is the makings of a beautiful garden, if I pay attention to what I'm doing!  :-)