Watching The Trees Sway

Serenity

There are moments, looking out the window, that I see the trees silently blowing in the wind. I see them from my desk in school, from my desk at work, from workplace to workplace, and everywhere in between. These giants of wood, leaves, and life. The birds in the trees sway with it; the insects scurrying up the base surely feel the wind.

When I see such large figures moving in unison I get this feeling, and it’s a unique one. I get a sense of small-ness. In front of me is an incredibly complex structure of life, and an embodiment of the land around me. I will watch the trees blow in the wind for a few moments. Just long enough to dip my toes in the pool before I’m back out. I won’t withdraw immediately from that sense of how small I am compared the trees, the forest, or the countryside.

I take it in, accept it, and for a moment I feel a sense of calm. Why should I be so worried about this deadline? That tree doesn’t care, so maybe I should be more like the tree; studying, unwavering, uncaring.

Productivity

After that moment I snap back into my working life. I remind myself that I’m an adult with responsibilities. I have deadlines, tasks, goals, bills, friends, and family. I can’t spend my time staring at trees, what good does that do me? That doesn’t get anything done. That wastes time, and I already feel like I have such little time in the day as it is to be wasting it staring at trees.

I need to focus, drink my coffee, write my code, and ship another feature in this decaying web application that nobody outside this company will likely see anyway. The complex structure to worry about is the intricacies of the computer program. There’s a bug, here’s a bug, over there is an unimplemented feature that I need to bounce to and fro between to get anything done at all.

The forest will remain a forest, however I’m being paid to do a job and the forest I should worry about is the company I work for and how much money this program is supposed to make them by helping the office workers.

A Happy Medium

I have two sides here. Each side is from the same coin. One is care free, the other is stressful. One sits, watches, and listens. The other sustains, works, and produces. One question I’ve never answered is how much of each should there be? In my job if I’m too carefree and not proactive enough then the evaluation of my performance decreases and I’m risking being deemed not worth my salary.

If I don’t have income then no amount of carefree attitude will pay bills. I could sit and stare at the trees for ages, even though they’re not really doing much of anything. There’s something so peaceful and calming about their motion, like watching the embers of a fire, or waves come to shore. Is it worth it, watching the trees?