energy

Recently I was asking a friend and her mom for help with some plants. I texted them photos and my friend actually said, “Some of them look like they need a miracle haha.” 

But something her mom said about one of them struck me. She said to cut off the yellow parts so it wasn’t spending extra energy on what was dead. So then it might be saved if it could spend it’s energy on what was maybe still alive. 

I needed to remove anything that was dead so the dead parts wouldn’t consume the energy of what could be alive. And the only way to know if there was anything left alive, was to get rid of what was dead. 

Sometimes I feel like I can be prone to nurturing what’s not even alive. (One time I even mistakenly watered a fake plant… ha!) It’s not wrong to believe and hope the best. And sometimes we don’t really know if something is alive or not. But when the death is obvious in part of something, this was a gentle prompt to me to not let it consume energy that could be used for cultivating life. Yes, I can still remain a tenacious advocate, but I also need to let the end come. I need to not expend energy on what’s lifeless. Because that steals energy from what does have life.

Currently there’s nothing left of this poor plant above the surface, and I don’t know if it’ll come back. But there’s nothing left that’s dead to suck the energy out of what could be alive. So it has the best chance possible now that it could ever have. And if it was too far gone to begin with, the inevitable end isn’t prolonged. 

So I wait and see. Giving it the best chance possible while not letting it waste it’s energy on what is already dead.