Every time I look out my window into our tiny square grassy space outside of our apartment, I always check on the flowers and our outdoor mini bonsai. Generally, I tend to kill plants faster than you can even say plant, but I do think that just peeking out and giving them some extra tender loving care has kept them alive far longer than before. Sometimes I think it isn't necessarily the food or the water that keeps them going (thought that helps) but just the attention and the reminder that they are there-their leaves blowing in the wind basking under our golden sun. There is no greater whimsy than watching growth unfold before your eyes.

And the more that I think about growing and plants, I have recently been contemplating the growth of people or lack of growth thereof. This summer has been my first stint where my primarily role is helping to support the growth of adult people rather than my usual little third grade friends. And I think two very important growth factors have been realized as I have been traveling upon this whimsical though sometimes incredibly hectic day-to-day summer journey. Adults are hands-down their own inhibitors of growth. Because no growth is ever achieved, no whimsy realized if we spend day- to day complaining about those tiny specs of life that in the realm of the world really aren't so very important. 

There is something so pure about a child. Because often the struggles they deal with aren't necessarily a result of complaining but rather the want to grow but the need of a little encouragement or the want to grow but the need of a new perspective. And I must say that if you place a child anywhere, they will create and make their own fun and very rarely do you find them complaining. 

Those complaints are like the weeds that engulf and suffocate the greenery outside your yard as they slither and snatch away love so quickly that sometimes you cannot even see what love has been lost until you focus on another complaint and then another and pretty soon your garden is swarming with those greedy green snakes that have replaced peace and love and joy. I think complaining is sometimes simply a habit-almost as addicting as lying. But I think also complaining is a way we communicate with others. Because it's easier to complain to another than try to start about another conversation on a much more growth-worthy topic. 

The thing is, if our communication style becomes complaining then you miss out on all the positives going on in your life and your flowers aren't getting that little "peek out the window" they need. Because whether you realize it or not, every time you complain, you are peeking out the window at your weeds and giving them all the love and the attention that should be going to your beautiful blooms. Green is a beautiful color, but don't let that green overtake your rainbow landscape. When you look out the window, make sure you focus your whimsy on the blossoms you really want to grow. And you will find those bulbs beginning to bloom within yourself. This is how real growth takes place.