How Much Of Your Life Is Spent Killing Dandelions?

What’s the number one excuse for not doing work you love? What’s in the way of doing the things that matter most?

Time. The magic key to unlocking a world of possibility.

Have you ever said:

There isn’t enough time in the day.
I wish I could, but there’s no time.
Where does the time go?

However you put it, time is an obligatory-crutch that block us from the life we really want to live.

But what if you really looked at the ways you spend your time?

Really: How do you spend it?

I’m not knocking maintenance or cleaning … everyone gets stuff done to make a calmer life. Everyone has their own version of, “This gives me peace.”

But mixed in, there are things like killing dandelions.

I’ll call it a metephor for anything you do that you really don’t understand.

To me, killing dandelions doesn’t matter. The only reason I ever bothered before was because:

All my neighbors do it.

That’s it. Really, in a few weeks, they disappear anyways. I don’t like pesticides. The weeds are downright cheery, if you have the right perspective.

How many more dandelions will you kill before saying: I have better things to do?

How much more time and money will be wasted on things that don’t matter to you?

If the world was on fire, would you stop to save your dandelion-free lawn?

Or would you gather up the two or three things that mean the most and run for the weedy hills?

We all want more time to get amazing stuff done. Still searching?

Start with the dandelions.

How To Find Your Amazing Work

80 Day Project: Easy Steps To Write Your Own Life

{ 4 comments }

1 Tracy May 4, 2010 at 8:15 am

That made me think of this:

I have lost my smile,
but don’t worry.
The dandelion has it.

If you have lost your smile and yet are still capable of seeing that a dandelion is keeping it for you, the situation is not too bad. You still have enough mindfulness to see that the smile is there.

You only need to breathe consciously one or two times and you will recover your smile. The dandelion is one member of your community of friends. It is there, quite faithful, keeping your smile for you.

In fact, everything around you is keeping your smile for you. You don’t need to feel isolated. You only have to open yourself to the support that is all around you, and in you. Like the friend who saw that her smile was being kept by the dandelion, you can breathe in awareness, and your smile will return.”

It’s from Thich Nhat Hanh, his book “Peace is Every Step”.

2 Melissa May 4, 2010 at 5:34 pm: Remember when I tried to borrow that book? I think I left it on the chair by accident…

3 Tom May 17, 2010 at 11:06 pm

Tell your neighbours that dandelions make good eating. The leaves can be cooked like spinach or eaten raw in a salad. Also the root, picked in early Autumn can be roasted and dried to make coffee.