The other day, my sister was driving her 3 year old son home, and she told him to look at the trees… the wind was blowing that day and there were hundreds of leaves falling from the trees and filling the roads in yellow and red layers of colors, she told him to see how the trees were losing them all and they were being left with nothing in their branches.The little one, asked his mom in a very worried and concerned tone if they were dying.
Trying to explain herself and to evaporate his sadness, preoccupation- and possible future traumas- she replied that they were just fine, that the leaves were becoming very heavy and since the cold months are in their way, the trees needed to rest and let them go.
Yesterday, as I was speaking with my hubby on the phone, I was observing the very same amazing show of leaves falling in a magic dance and described to him how beautiful the trees look during Autumn, and that now that Winter is arriving, all the trees will just die.
And I guess if we humans were trees, the situation of the transition between the seasons of Fall and Winter would be as follow:
We’d be hanging out with our neighbors, other fancy trees with gorgeous green leaves during Summer time, we would all start changing colors, and probably with a little bit of worry we’d start trying to interpret and understand what that could possibly mean.
But when the tree next to us started losing its leaves, we’d be mortified, first we would be apprehensive that the same would happen to us, and we’d be afraid, we’d want to stay away and when we’d start losing our first leaves, we’d blame him for infecting us, then we’d hate him, and we’d start hanging on to all the leaves that for now would be brown and dry. We would ask for help to the birds, we’d try to bribe them to not go and help us keep the leaves in the right place, we’d try to put the leaves that start falling into our pockets (if trees had pockets, of course) and we’d try so hard to keep’em all… there would be drama, there would be tragedy, pity parties and tears, lots and lots of tears… but of course we would still want the new blossoms that come with the first showers of Spring, because we as humans want it all… we are not willing to let go, but we also want great things coming our way, we are greedy!
I really believe that in order to get new things, we should be willing to let go the old ones… to get new habits we have to let go a lot of bad stuff, to experience new things, we have to let go the status quo.
There is an old saying “Better the devil you know, than the devil you don't know”, I don’t like it, for me that’s just an excuse to not try new things, that’s a justification of our fears.
Of course, there is no certainty that things will go all right, but what if they are fun?
When we see life thru the eyes of right vs wrong, of success vs failure, of gain vs lose, we are doomed, because we just don’t know, and we will never know for sure; I seriously think that life is more than a yes/no question, there is not only black and white, grey is full, is abundant and is fulfilling, is not judgmental and is not polarized.
When things go great, then awesome, we achieve. But when things go messy, nasty, tough, and hard, that’s when we learn, that’s when we grow, that’s when our character and temper are tested, that’s when we really know who we are and who our true friends are.It’s not that we go thru life wanting bad or complicated things to happen to us.
But since we can’t prevent them from happening, what meaning does it have to live without taking risks? When we don’t let fear and uncertainty paralyze us, that’s when we really start to live fully and freely.
Trees don’t know that the leaves will grow back, they don’t know that there are cold months ahead with nothing but snow and dry air, they don’t know that after that there will be a reward of humidity, blossoms, and new fruit, they don’t know anything, but they still let go. I think there’s a lot of wisdom behind this nature process, a lot we can all learn a little bit from.
I guess confidence doesn’t come from knowing things will be all right, but from knowing that we will be all right no matter what happens.
