Life Is More Simple Than You Think…
How flowers help us all understand the world, and where we belong in it.
When you see a rose, can you tell me what comes to mind?
Is it the image of beauty? One that is celebrated amongst societies of all kind alike. The champion of flowers; containing a beautiful bud as well as tantalizing thorns.
Is it the image of pain? Pricking a finger as a child when trying to pull the flower towards the nose. Eager to get the sweet scent of its hues into our nostrils, yet slighted by the blood that drips along the stems.
Is it the image of love? A love that lasts a lifetime. The various warm tones of the petals reminding us of the love that exists, or a love that once was. Its rounded shape yielding complexity of our heart. We yearn to receive its gifts, but wait patiently for the right moments.
Now tell me, what exactly came to mind with the rose? Was it one of my suggestions? Or perhaps something else? Nevertheless, I believe another meaning exists within the fabled plant. One that storytelling and fairytales alike have failed to point out within the shrine.
I suggest that the rose is a symbol of being. Nothing more, nothing less.
Comparison Is a Bitch.
In the new dawn of social media, it’s damn near impossible to live a life of minding your own business. We are fed the lives of celebrities through millions of screens each and every day, and we’re convinced that this constant exposure grants a sense of joy in our brain.
Tell me this, when was the last time you actually enjoyed looking through someone’s social media?
I reckon the memory fails to come quickly, and I agree that seldom accounts actually try to bring joy in a feed full of flexes.
Social media is a resource for sharing our lives, yet it has transformed into a curation of what we want others to see. People choose to highlight the best moments of their lives; with little to no exposure to the various hardships they face in a day to day. This in effect creates a facade of what the ideal lifestyle is. Social media promotes an “influencer” lifestyle from various folks alike, without displaying the various adversities that makes us human.
We as humans seek to compare in order to feel good about ourselves. It’s something that we are naturally inclined to do. If we see someone who we perceive as “worse”, we instantly feel better about wherever our position in the world may be.
I suggest that the new comparison should be made not with other humans, but with flowers.
We Are All Roses
When a rose is in bloom, it embarks on a journey. It begins as a small seed, and through love and care is it able to bloom into the flower we all know and love.
Still, within a singular rose bush there exists a plethora of roses. Do you think that the roses compare themselves with each other?
The simple answer is no. And there’s good reason for it.
See, roses don’t need to compare themselves to their fellow flowers because they know that what matters is the process of blooming. Each individual flower works long and hard for its own self-improvement, striving to finally achieve the state where it can be pollinated. The first flower that blooms does not kick the others down. Instead they exist in harmony to share their beauties with the world.
And like roses, humans can exist in this state too. Instead of comparing accomplishments with each other, we can focus on creating accomplishments for ourselves. We can seek to constantly focus on whats in front of us, in order to bring something to the world that we once imagined.
Life is a complicated journey. Many people will not want you to succeed because they don’t want to feel like they are not important. They’ll kick you down to see you fall, and laugh in your face as you clamor for aid.
Life is not about these kinds of people. Life is about the fellow roses that exist in your bushel. These are the people who you can share stories with, and grow together with. These are the people that will be happy to see you succeed, and have rooted you on since you first implanted yourself into the ground.
So I’ll conclude on that note. Are you living your life similar to the rose? Living each day for growth in order to one day see the fruits of your labor be present.
I believe everyone is capable of it, and it all begins with planting a seed.
Thanks for reading this article! My name is Spencer Spring and I’m currently a 3rd year English Major at UCLA seeking to bring a youthful perspective to this website. If you enjoyed this article, check out my other works of writing and poetry by clicking on my profile.
