The Practicing Mind: Developing Focus and Discipline in Your Life by Thomas M. Sterner

perfection?
    Let’s see what nature teaches us every day as we walk past the flowers in our garden. At what point is a flower perfect? Is it perfect when it is nothing more than a seed in your hand waiting to be planted? All that it will ever be is there in that moment. Is it perfect when it first starts to germinate unseen under several inches of soil? This is when it displays the first signs of the miracle we call creation. How about when it pokes its head through the surface and sees the face of the sun for the first time? All its energies have gone into reaching for this source of life; until this point, it has had nothing more than an inner voice telling it which way to grow. What about when it begins to flower? This is when its individual properties start to be seen. The shape of the leaves, the number of blooms: all are unique to this one flower, even among the other flowers of the same species. Or is it the stage of full bloom, the crescendo of all the energy and effort the flower expended to reach this point in its life? Let’s not forget its humble and quiet ending, when it returns tothe soil from where it came. At what point is the flower perfect?
    I hope you already know the answer: It is always perfect. It is perfect at being wherever it is and at whatever stage of growth it is in at that moment. It is perfect at being a seed, when it is placed into the ground. At that moment in time, it is exactly what it is supposed to be: a seed. Just because it does not have brightly colored blooms doesn’t mean it is not a good flower seed. When it first sprouts through the ground, it is not imperfect because it displays only the color green. At each stage of growth, from seed to full bloom and beyond, it is perfect at being a flower at that particular stage of a flower’s life. A flower must start as a seed, and it will not budge one millimeter toward its potential grandeur of full bloom without the nourishment of water, soil, sun, and also time . It takes time for all these elements to work together to produce the flower.
    Do you think that a flower seed sits in the ground and says, “This is going to take forever. I have to push all this dirt out of my way just to get to the surface and see the sun. Every time it rains or somebody waters me, I’m soaking wet and surrounded by mud. When do I get to bloom? That’s when I’ll be happy; that’s when everybody will be impressed with me. I hope I’m an orchid and not some wildflower nobody notices. Orchids have it all . . . no, wait; I want to be an oak tree. They are bigger than anybody else in the forest and live longer, too”?
    As silly as the flower’s monologue might sound, it is exactly what we do, and we do it, as they say, every dayand in every way. We consciously or unconsciously pick a point of reference in whatever we do and decide that nothing will be right until we get to that point. If you step back and observe your internal dialogue from time to time during the day, you will be amazed at how hard you work against yourself with this type of thinking.
    When we are driving somewhere, we can’t wait to get there . Wherever there is, I doubt very much it often matters whether we arrive fifteen minutes later than we’d expected. Yet when I am driving on the highway, all around me people are pushing the speed limit to the maximum and probably never notice most of what they drive past. When I look in my rearview mirror, I see someone who is irritated with the world for getting in his way and exhausted by the stress and strain that impatience brings to his body and mind when he lives in this state. If you step back routinely during your day and observe where your attention is, you will be amazed at how few times it is where you are and on what you are doing.
    When you develop a present-minded approach to every activity you are involved in and, like the flower, realize that at whatever level you are performing, you are perfect at that point in time, you