Grow Where You’re Planted

The working world is filled with people who work so  hard to find a job, yet once they get thrown their first roadblock or difficulty in that position are already casting their eyes to greener pastures, instead of working through the challenge and looking for a solution.

In professional sports, it often happens that a player who isn’t given a chance in one team, leaves and becomes an instant hit in another. What happened? Did they suddenly become a better player in the transition? No, they just saw opportunities in their new environment that they didn’t think were there before.

How about a family who decides to start a new life in a new State or Country.  Could they have been just as successful staying where they were or does the new environment allow a different perspective, appreciation or freedom that they didn’t have before?

Maybe these challenges are sent to make us stronger and the longer we stand our ground, like a tree in a storm, the deeper our roots get and the better equipped we are for the future.

So what are some ways we can better ourselves and our situation and ‘bloom where we’re planted’?

1. Work with what we’ve got, not with what they wish we had;
2. See the constraints of our current situation less as an obstacle and more as an arena in which to fully express our talents and creativity;
3. Look long enough at the status quo in order to identify problems that others don’t even notice anymore;
4. Make some simple additions and subtractions to what’s already in place, in order to create something novel that makes a real difference in the lives of others.