What to Do Instead of Focusing on ‘Fixing’ Any Problems

Life Lesson from Gardening

I stepped into my partner’s apartment after a few months of being away, and the first thing I noticed was the dead plant sitting right in the middle of the dining room. Being brought up in a Chinese household and knowing a few things about Feng Shui, I immediately told him that we need to do something about it as keeping dead plants are bad energy.

We decided to grow some new basil in the pot and try to revitalize the dried up soil filled with dead stems. With some tips from our gardening friend, we proceeded with removing the stems and roots from the soil, followed by layering some fruit peels as fertilizer in the next step.

Being a person who loves analogies and stories, and seeing connections in everything, I found much wisdom in the process of digging the dead roots from the soil and placing new fruit peels in. The act of it taught me that removing the dead roots requires some effort, pulling and tugging with the help of some tools like a spade, and uncovering what’s buried within.

It hit me that this is the same process with our minds in changing our behaviour or thinking. It is definitely not easy and we’ll face resistance. But if we leave the roots in, removing the stems and upper layers would not solve the problems, and we need to go deeper and put in the work to get to the root literally and bottom of the problem.

The actual process itself was pretty messy, we’ve got soil all over the kitchen, and sometimes it took a few more tugs, and just like our unhelpful beliefs, they are deep-rooted since childhood and our past life experiences. Rewriting and unlearning them requires some effort and won’t be a linear process, it’s messy but easier if we have some tools at our hands, and support from the right people.

It also reminded me of a garden story I learned from positive psychology, where it focuses on an approach that is strength-based instead of ‘fixing the bad’.

It is like gardening, you can pull out all the weeds but if you don’t plant any flowers in it, it will still be an empty garden and not flourish. — Martin Seligman

We tend to spend so much energy and effort wishing the problems we have would go away, or resisting them in the process of seeking solutions. Yes, getting rid of our problems are important, but just like our dead basil plant, getting rid of the roots was not enough. We had to plant in new seeds, nourish the dry soil with fruit peels and experiment with a few things.

Just like our problems in life, removing the negatives is only part of the solution, we need to proactively seek new ways of doing things to in order for positive experiences and feelings to grow. And sometimes, it might take a few tries, and also some time to plant those new seeds and for them to grow, but they will be much more sustaining and lead to a thriving and blossoming garden of the mind.

“We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” Albert Einstein.

Stop resisting your own problems today and try to face them with a curious-led and playful approach. Don’t be discouraged when one way doesn’t work, there are many options out there for you and keep building new paths while getting to the root of your problems.