Bloom.

My wife bought for me an amazingly beautiful and intriguing plant called the goldfish plant (or Nematanthus wettsteinii for all of you nerdy scientific types). It has these bright orange flowers that radiate from glossy green foliage; the flowers look like little orange goldfish.

Sadly, I am not a very good plant person. I love them, but I certainly don’t have a green thumb—mine ismore of a deep blue-green. I don’t tend to kill plants, but under my guard, they never seem to flourish as they were intended. Over a number of weeks I watched as it slowly began to lose it’s little fish, then its leaves; it was in a really bad way. Apparently, the goldfish plant likes lots of sun and just as much water, neither of which I was affording it.

So, one day when I was feeling particularly guilty about slowly torturing the poor thing, I decided to move it upstairs into our bathroom, which gets sunlight nearly all day. It’s right by my sink, staring me in the face and beckoning every day to be watered. It is amazing how this simple change and this tiny bit of consistent attention has transformed my goldfish plant from near twig status to a thriving bush, bright and full of life.

And so it is with us. If we are not allowing sunshine into our lives, or filling ourselves with essential elements, we slowly shrivel and eventually die. And I don’t mean literal sunshine and water (although those are certainly important), but encouragement, mental stimulation, emotional food. If we lock ourselves up in the dark of our own disappointments, frustrations, anger or fears, we cannot grow and thrive. Our beauty begins to disappear and we wither into something unsightly and honestly, quite sad.

This is even more true in our relationship with others. My plant couldn’t wiggle its way into the sun, nor could it hop over to the sink and take a nice refreshing drink—I had to provide those things. I had an obligation and a responsibility to ensure it had what it needed to live. We also have a responsibility as fellow humans to water one another’s soil. Sometimes people simply need moved into the sunlight, or they need a nice long, refreshing drink for their souls.

Open the blinds to let light into your life, and feed your soul with uplifting, refreshing things. Stop stagnating. Stop miserably dying. Your beauty deserves to bloom. You were intended for so much more. Let yourself be pruned and watered so that you, in turn, can do the same for others. What an awesomely beautiful garden this world would be if we all helped tend it. Bloom.

Photo kindly provided by Todd Boland