Flowers Do Their Thing Anyway

Sometimes, I go for a walk by myself.

There is this cosy path through the forest that starts just a few steps down the road. You can walk on a nice loop for anything between half an hour and an hour and a half, depending on the turns you take.

I like that path.

I like it because I’m in the forest almost immediately. There is a little stream that runs through the valley.

And there are flowers. I love flowers.

All of this nature, close up and personal, under my feet and all around me, reminds me that I have no control over the world. It says that, even though things get really crazy for humans sometimes, a lot of "the world" just keeps moving on as if nothing happened.

The trees in my little forest really do not care about the pandemic, politics, or anything else.

They just grow. And grow.

As far as I could tell, they just did their thing throughout this pandemic, the US elections, and whatever else plagued our news cycle over the last year and a half.

And you know what? Most of the world is like that.

We think we are so important. But even though we are the "dominant species" on the planet, insects outnumber us. Blades of grass outnumber us. A lot of other things that live and grow and blossom and die outnumber us.

And they all just go on unconcerned. For the most part, anyway.

To me, this is one of the biggest comforts that nature provides. The reminder that even though some things are essential to me right now, they don't have a large effect on every living in existence.

Even when my concerns are global, the flowers that creep along the forest floor just blossom.

They did not blossom more or less because of who was president or because there always is a war on somewhere.

They did their thing.

How cool is that?

So whenever I walk outside, I think about what I can take out of nature's book. How can I be more like the trees and the flowers?

What is my thing, and can I go and just do that?

Sometimes, the answer is "no, you have to do something about what's going on." In that case, I look for what I can do.

In most cases, though, the answer to "can I just do my thing?" is "yes, you can just do your thing. Don’t falter. Just keep going about the business of living".

So I do.