Cyclical

I find it fascinating that my indoor plants have an innate understanding of seasons. In spite of their environs’ artificial temperature and a routine watering that’s ambivalent to seasons, they bloom in spring, as if on cue. They operate on a cycle and know the start and stop points of that cycle, even if fully removed from the weather conditions outside the window they sit behind.

It leads me to wonder how much of our own behavior is innate and how much of our own thoughts, feelings, and actions are cyclical. I suspect the unconscious mind dictates more of my own actions and thoughts than I’d care to admit.

How much of me is on autopilot?

This year’s spring has felt delayed. I’m not sure I believe it even started. It was snowing last Friday at a time when I would expect to be out in shorts and a tee shirt. Still, it’s notably greener outside. There is change in the air.

Regarding change, they say we become more bound to our habits as we age. “He’s stuck in his ways” is a popular way to describe it. To be stuck in my ways is my greatest fear. I’d rather be a plant with new flowers each spring.

With each year I find that change requires more discomfort. Change becomes difficult. We want to believe we’ve mastered this thing called life, and therefore being a novice ironically becomes more terrifying. We want to be proven right. We want to be complacent and have nothing more to struggle with. At least I do.

Despite that innate yearning to be done changing, I aim to be a permanent novice. That requires routinely starting with nothing. It requires a lot of winters leaving you with barren branches. Yet that’s what’s required to grow flowers.

I hope the continuous effort to renew myself is worthwhile. I need movement, change, and paradigm shifts. I need to learn from other people. That means I should often be proven wrong and I should often acknowledge that I was proven wrong.

It means looking back on old blogs and cringing, but also acknowledging why I’m cringing and being able to articulate how I’m different now.

Who knows, maybe I’ll gain some wisdom from the whole ordeal.