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No More Frustration: The Thorns of Opportunity - Part I
The Thorns of Opportunity... What are you trying so hard to do? Do you ever find yourself saying "If I just had a little more time life would be great!" or asking "Where did all the time go?" In this story you will learn how you can have more time and actually begin to enjoy your day. Imagine, if you can, three separate fields of roses. Each field tended by it's perspective owner and brimming with life. This writing will look at two of the fields and the contrasting results experienced between the two gardeners. Each of the gardeners seem to have a green thumb as the plants are healthy and green. Still on any given day you may notice that one field is filled with the many colors of the blooming roses, while the other is filled with thorny bushes and not a single bloom in sight. In the one field filled with blooms the gardener is tending to the weeds. There are not many weeds as it is a practice to remove them each and every morning. With the weeds out of the way the rest of the day is spent enjoying the many colors and gentle fragrances of the roses. In the other field the weeds are many as the gardener is very busy tending to the rose bushes. In fact this gardener works from sun up to sun down to keep the field healthy and still there is not a bloom in sight. You see there is no time to manage the weeds, because the gardener is busy clipping the buds off of the 1000's of rose bushes. Never having seen a rose bloom, let alone smelled the fragrance of such a bloom, the gardener sees each bud as a defect, an imperfection, a disease, or something that can harm the beautiful thorny bush. So, it is with great care, and as much love as the first gardener, that the buds are clipped everyday, by the "thorny" gardener, until the season has passed. Once the season has passed the weeds will then become the gardener's focus. Yes, from sun up to sun down, regardless of the weather, the weeds will be tended. Life has a way of being perfect and things sometimes happen in our day that are so unique or profound that we suddenly find ourselves seeing and experiencing life in a new and different way. Quite often such a change will last a lifetime. This leads me to what many call the "ah ha" moment. Still others may call it a "light bulb" moment, and you may even say it differently. What is an "ah ha" moment, what is it when one experiences such a break through? It is much like that moment when the "thorny" gardener, by chance, missed a bud. The bud was not clipped. As a result on one very special morning, while franticly clipping the buds, a rose bloom suddenly appeared. In a field filled with thorny bushes that first rose bloom was easy to see and it's fragance could not be missed. It is that first moment when we suddenly find ourselves, much like the "thorny" gardener, standing in a field of thorns, holding in our hands our first experience of a rose bloom. As we feel the tender pedals caress our hands and experience the air as it fills with the sweet and gentle aroma of the rose. It is then, as we look around that we realize what we didn't know. It is then that we experience the "ah ha" moment. We can suddenly see that our field of life can be filled with 1000's of rose blooms. It is then we come to understand that all we have to do is stop clipping the buds, start tending the weeds, and enjoying the blooms. It is in that moment that life begins a new unless your like the third gardener who won't except anything less than the best. If it's not perfect why bother! Join me in 7 days for part 2 of "The Thorns of Opportunity..." The quest for the ultimate victory. James Smith
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