Seven Life Lesson From Cactus
“Learn from everything in your life, even the small one.”
It’s the second year since I live in an apartment.
I’ve been live in here alone with a law that the occupant is not allowed to have a pet. It’s not a big deal for me because I’m familiar with being alone.
But, since I start to work and do a lot of things which means spending most of my time in an apartment, I easily get dizzy. And when I get dizzy, I need to see a plant. Literally, a plant.
I don’t know why but it helps me to cure my dizziness.
And FYI, my room’s view is a pool with plants around it. But still, I need the closer plant in front of me.
So, I decided to buy some cactus. I bought some small and colorful cactus, so I can put it on my desk. Because I need to see it easily anytime I start to get dizzy.
It’s been a few days since I start to plant a cactus. In a few days, I already got a lot of life lessons from it. Most of them are such a reminder for me. And I want to share it with you. So, here are...
Seven Life Lesson From A Cactus
1. It’s okay to be prickly sometimes.
Cactus is well-known for its spines.
Their spines can hurt an animal, human, another plant accidentally if those creatures didn’t know that the cactus spine is sharp and dangerous or if they can’t handle the hurt.
You also can accidentally wound other people with things you say or do. It’s something that can happen and sometimes anybody can do is move on. Stay out of it.
But, surely that accidental incident should be your lesson to be more careful. And don’t forget to say sorry even it happens accidentally.
“Make your mistakes work for you by learning from them.”
2. Diversity is Beautiful.
“Diversity is about embracing one another’s uniqueness.”
Photo by Scott Webb on Unsplash
I’m not an expert nor interested in cactus, even before I decided to buy one. So, all I know about cactus is that maybe there are only 500 species of cactus. And all of them are green.
Obviously, it was wrong.
There are more than 4000 varieties of cactus in the world and there are so many colors too, even though most of them are green.
But, when I buy cactus I think about,
“Isn’t it too boring to have only green-colored cactus?”
Same as humans.
Imagine if people around you have the same face, same characteristic, same thought, same interest and no difference at all. It’s good but there will be no creativity and definitely no uniqueness.
I’m glad all humans on this earth are different, even the baby twins.
3. We are important to those around us.
As I said, all humans on this earth are different.
And there are a lot of people in this world. You can meet different people every month, every week or even every day.
Chance to choose which people are unimportant to you is quite big.
But, like cactus. Even they looked like unimportant, without them, dozens of species would go extinct and throw off the balance of the entire ecosystem.
So, you can assume now, even if someone seems unimportant to you, they have immeasurable value for you.
4. Even if a person looked scary on the outside, they can be soft on the inside.
“Don’t judge a book by its cover.”
Some types of cactus can absorb up to 200 gallons of water during rainfall. So, it making the inside juicy and soft.
Under all that sharpy and dangerous spines, there is a soft texture on the inside.
You must have seen a person who looks scary and fierce. Well, it’s true that we shouldn’t judge a book by its cover.
’Cause some people are not like what they looked like. And I’ve seen some like that.
Scary look with a sensitive heart.
5. It’s okay to take your time.
There is a cactus name Saguaro.
It can produce a flower but it takes about 70 years to show it first flower. That means it needs one to two generations to see the first flower.
Learn from Saguaro cactus, we know that it’s fine to take your own time to bloom.
’Cause not every people to have the same time to reach their dream and be successful.
“Let everything happen naturally, NEVER force it.”
6. Good things come to those who wait.
This linked with the previous point.
Everybody has their own time, their own process to reach or get something they want.
That’s why you need to be patient and just wait for the time for you to bloom. To show the best version of yourself.
I know it’s hard to get through a hard time, but it won’t last forever.
“The best is yet to come.”
And cactus knows about it.
During the dry season, they keep strong and hold all the water that they have. They know the drought will end and there will be rain.
Difficult time will end and there will be time for you to feel all the happiness.
7. Have a strong yet flexible characteristic.
Your characteristic is our uniqueness. Your value.
It helps you to be who you are right now. It helps you to get what we need. You need it to keep stand out in this life.
No matter where you are, you need your own characteristic alongside with you.
But, you also have to be able to adapt. Be open-minded and change your characteristic if it’s an advantage for you. And this one what we learn from cactus.
Cactus roots help to gather and preserve water in several ways. So, they can save the water for later. Their roots also change characteristics as the water supply fluctuates.
Thank you for reading this story. I hope you get something new from this.
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