I took this picture some time ago. I was on my way into a city for a night out if my memory serves me correctly. I stood on the platform, surrounded by people all going their own direction and as is usual on public transport nobody paid much attention to everyone else.
I expect people looked at me as a little odd when I stopped to take a picture of a straggly looking sapling growing but to me, the little tree stood for something.
At first, I saw it and it made me think how nature will always try to reclaim the earth for itself. Right there in the middle of those tracks, a seed had landed and against all odds it was growing. Nature literally took root and began to flourish seemingly oblivious to the thousands of people passing by in long tin tubes every day.
I took the picture and while travelling I changed it to black and white, nothing makes a picture look more artistic than black and white so I tinkered with my phone and made it look swish.
As I played with the picture I started to think a little deeper about that tree. It became more than nature trying to reclaim the planet. I started to wonder what we could learn from the tree.
Each of us will meet adversity at some point in our lives. Some of us will land in fertile soil in a beautiful field with nothing to stop our sunlight. Some of us may land on concrete and sadly we may never be able to take root at all. Many of us though will fall somewhere in between. We will land somewhere like that tree on the tracks.
We will struggle to grow, we may never be able to reach as high as if we landed in a prime spot. We will constantly be surrounded by noise and hustle and people rushing by without noticing. We will face the hardships of the year alone. Some of us may even be hit if we try to spread our branches too close to the trains. There are countless hardships we will face during our lives and ultimately some lives will be cut short just because we didn’t land in the right place.
What is important though is that we try. We make the most of what we have. We push our roots into whatever bit of crappy soil we have, we grow as tall and as wide as we can. We accept the fact that people push past us every day, unaware or uncaring of our plight. We must do this because the only other option is to give up and never try. We quit and take drastic action or blame the people on the train for our problems. We either thrive or quit and die.
Hopefully, you will make the decision to try, to thrive and accept that people will rush past us on their lives journey. Hopefully, you will do this because maybe someone will see your struggle, appreciate it, respect you for everything you’ve tried to do and learn something to help them grow in their own lives.
Make the most of what you have and strive to grow. Be like the tree on the tracks and you too will get to feel the sun on your leaves.
© 2017 David G Chambers. All rights reserved.
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