 Plant for your future
“The fruits of my labor I enjoy’em while they still ripe” Lil Wayne I love that lyric. I wish we could all apply the same philosophy to our lives. People come to therapy and most often tell me “I need you to fix me. Tell me what to do to get better.” My response is always the same. “I can’t fix you, but I can help you fix yourself.” It all starts with the seeds you plant. Using seed as an analogy, we all become farmers. Seed can be our children, can be our relationships, it can be anything in this world that we plant not for the now, but for the future. Science tells us in order for seed to grow, we have to have soil, water, and sun light. Let’s adopt seed as our goals or desires, and soil, water, and sunlight as the attention and focus we deliver to that seed. I had a client come to me once and stated “I can’t control my son, he won’t listen to me. I need your help.” As we visited with each other, it came to pass that mom was never home. Mom worked a lot and at night, she enjoyed partaking in the night life because according to her, “I deserve to have a life too, not just be a mom.” And to some extent she was right. But let’s remember what happens to a tree that is often ignored and deprived of water and sunlight. There was a married couple that came to me due to problems in their relationship. The relationship had apparently grown stale and mundane and both were beginning to live separately from each other, each going their own way on weekends and not having much interaction during the week. “Can you tell us what to do? This is our last resort before divorce!” they exclaimed. In both these cases, the farmer began to ignore his seed. Sure the seed had grown and blossomed for a bit, but it still needed strong soil, water, and sunlight to keep bearing fruit. Often times we pay a lot of attention to our children or our spouse in the beginning, but slowly begin to wander off. If you want success and happiness, you can not allow your seed to go without soil, water, and sun light. Remember that seed is planted for the future, not for the now. Children will grow up and if you ignore them, eventually they will ignore you. Your relationship will grow stale if you begin to ignore your partner. We all need love, affection, and attention. It’s what makes us happy. If we provide that, that same love and attention will be reciprocated. A farmer that nourishes his orchard with enriched soil and water under direct sunlight will harvest great fruit. Do not allow yourself to harvest bad fruit because life gets in the way, preventing you from paying attention to your seed. Lil Wayne worked very hard at his craft to get where he is. Every person that works hard will eventually be rewarded. If you plant seed with good intentions and provide care and attention, that seed will bear good fruit. The sweetness of your fruit will depend on the labor you provided while it was growing. Remember that.
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 Life is a journey best enjoyed with those you love the most. – Noe A. Lopez
The difference between someone who enjoys their journey and someone who doesn't is choice. Too many times people want to focus on what’s wrong in their lives. This is a choice. A choice that person has decided to make. No matter how hard life is or how much adversity you are facing, you decide rather you want to be happy or unhappy. We all deal with heartache, loss, and despair. Some of us even get angry at life. But ask yourself one simple question. “Where is my focus?” If you are focusing on all that is wrong in your life, then the choice you are making is to be unhappy. A happy person doesn't walk around thinking about all the bad in his or her life. When I was a student in college, my life was under constant duress and stress. I was a teenage father at 19 years old working two jobs and going to school part time. I was on my own and had no financial help other than the financial aid my university provided. It wasn't much, but it was a small help. I was paying child support and a high interest car loan on a gas guzzling SUV all the while trying to get an education, jumping from one job to my other job. Sometimes my schedule called for work, class, then my other job. There was very little time for rest and relaxation. I wanted to give up. It felt never ending. And while many other students faced the same or harsher conditions, the prevailing thought was to continue marching forward. We all face the idea of wanting to quit, of wanting to give up. We can recite countless excuses on why it couldn't be done or why it was so hard to accomplish. But this is the choice we have in order to enjoy life. We can choose to give up working for our future or the things we want in life because they were to hard or difficult to attain. Or we can choose to continue working hard and understand hard work is part of the process. I have yet to come across a person who works hard and isn't rewarded. As your journey winds down, will you be remembering the perseverance that allowed you to succeed, or have regrets of giving up on your dreams? We all have very distinct journeys but the outcome is dependent on the choices you make. Choose wisely. |
NoeA realist that sees life as the way it is. Archives
March 2013
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