The Undisciplined Gardener

Posted on 11. Sep, 2010 by Dereck Arreguin in Motivational

There’s just a few things you gotta know first.

I’m no stranger to gardening or to yard work in general, but it has been some time since I’ve had to do any of it. Life as a bachelor and occupier of apartments, the only tending to greenery I’ve done in the past 10 years was the occasional house plant.

So there we were, my old man and me.

He mentioned earlier that he was going to do some yard work and I (knowing that was my que), immediately asked if there was anything I could do.

“No, it will only take about an hour to do everything”

was his quick reply.

But I insisted and was quickly directed to the lawnmower (the push kind).

Yep, this would be no problem! I’ve done this a couple hundred times (in my head).

I was instructed to mow the side yard, front yard and the adjacent neighbors front lawn, as my more than cautious father was looking over my shoulder.

As I trolled back and forth, creating vertical lines in the grass, I was abruptly intercepted as the rains of earthly grass devastation was ripped from my hands.

“YOU’RE NOT DOING IT RIGHT!“,

and I should have known.

My father is a very particular man and he likes it done only his way. But he never mentions it until you’ve messed up. Oh how this will be the last time I volunteer to help out in the yard again!

“There’s a 12 year old who lives next door and he knows how to mow a lawn”

He said over the roar of the fan blades decapitating the heads of grass below our feet.

“I taught him myself”

… said my grumpy old man.

Up and down the yard he goes with a little disgusted limp. I could just imagine what he was thinking, “my 28 year old son can’t even mow the freaking lawn”.

I had to do something…

So I step in and said…

” I got it”

and quickly grabed the rains back from my father.

“You see that, it’s called a mow line. Place the wheel along the crack of the sidewalk and follow it down”

my father said.

Quickly not to answer back, I did as he said and finished the first half of the days lawn treatment.

I turn off the mower and grabbed the bin to throw our grass shavings in and start again on the other half of the front lawn that was separated by the driveway.

“I got this”

As I rounded the corner and proceeded to push my way though the pathetic resistance mother nature had placed before me.

And then it happened!

I noticed this part of the yard had hills. Freaking hills… planters, mulch and trees all on a slope.

I wanted to slap the person who designed such a frankenstein abomination. Yep, I knew I was going to pay for this one as I could tell my father had an eye on my work.

After navigating through all the obstacles and attempting to have straight lines, I stopped the mower and took a step back.

“You see those waves in the grass?”

(the wavy mow lines), my father said.

“Yeah”

… I quietly sputtered.

“You gotta go around the planter and then up and down. That cut makes you look sloppy and undisciplined.”

Thanks old man! That’s the last time I offer to save you some sweat under the Temecula sun at noon on a thursday!

Then I let that last part sit for a spell and realized, this whole experience isn’t about gardening at all. It’s about discipline. It’s about doing it over and over again till you’ve perfected it.

It’s about discovering how to achieve great things even when in the beginning, you are not the best.

Jim Rohn once talked about discipline. He talked about the disciplined farmer who planted seed. Day in and day out the farmer would plant seed and little by little things started to happen.

Along the way, birds ate the farmers seed. The other plants crowded the fresh new life and the ground seemed to steal it from existence.

Yes, I remember the story quite clearly and helped me remember why we do what we do. Just like the farmer and me on that day, we made the connection of starting somewhere.

Growth always starts with a planting of a seed. Sometimes it takes days, can even take weeks or sometimes months to see results. But, it is soon discovered that what we do today, will provide results tomorrow.

What we do this week will pay off the next. What we do this month will prove to be useful the following and what we do this year will pay off next year.

Ahhh how I understand! As if a light bulb went off in my head and I always knew it.

Maybe, if we just had enough courage to stick to it, we would get the results. Maybe if we didn’t allow the occasional set back deter us from our vision of something greater; we would see the fruits of our labor.

In the case of my father and his lawn today, I’d look around and know that his lawn is one of the best in his neighborhood. While others were watching TV, playing games, drinking a cold one or sleeping, my old man stepped out under the hot Temecula sun and got to work.

Sweating, cutting, mowing, raking… he perfected his technique and in a short one hours time, did what would take a rookie like me a few hours or more to do.

That is what separates the professional from the green horn.

So let that be the lesson.

Don’t expect record breaking results. Everything had to start somewhere with a planting of a seed. The results you desire are only after many failed attempts and stumbles along the way.

Expect failure, but expect victory at the same time!

Tags: gardener, the undisciplined gardener, undisciplined, undisciplined gardener