What The Flower Gave Me

Just inspired by Florence + The Machine "What the water gave me", thus the tittle which I'm gonna talk about the flowers! Well after being in the flower industry for 4 years now, they really have given me a lot of valuable lessons that I can apply into my daily life. And one great lesson: The art of letting go.

In Buddhism, the flower offering in a puja is actually a reminder of impermanence. Just like how a flower would wilt at the end of its life, so will we decay at ours too. To me they are not only a symbol of impermanence, but also a symbol of triumph. Well not in the case of chrysanthemum (the flowers that we grow), since we plant them from saplings and not seeds. But like how a lotus flower has to go through mud and dirt to become a beautiful, to me is a great symbol of triumph.

But recently, I also learned the art of letting go from them. 

Well it's really interesting when your business involves living things. And that they have nature literally as their mother. Just like every other living things too, these flowers grow and we don't have much control over them. Sure we can feed them with fertilisers, "cure" them with vitamins and prevent "diseases" (and pests) from killing them with pesticides/fungicides. But to how they grow from a sapling till an adult, we have no control over of. How fast they grow, how fast they bloom, etc.

I mean sure we can tweak the variables to try and make them grow as how we want them to grow. But at the end of the day I'm always reminded that they are living beings, and we can't really ultimately control their lives. A good example is the case of the difference in the speed of blooming. How we expected them to bloom in 112 days, but they turned out to bloom in 120 days and so on.

Once we plant them onto the soil, they will grow. And we can help them to assist on their journey of growth but apart from this, we don't have any other controls left. Once they're on the soil, that's how the art of letting go kicks in. We just let go of whatever's gonna come and... See.

I used to feel annoyed whenever I learn that the flowers are not blooming as we planned them to. But then again I'll always remind myself that hey they are living beings! Stop treating them like dead objects that we manufacture. I just let them go and see what's ahead of us. If they bloom, they bloom. And if they don't then it's okay, we'll try better next time. Because there's really nothing we can do! :P

So yeah I learned a lot about letting go. Sometimes in life we always frustrate ourselves over things we have no control over with. We want things to go according to our plans (who don't!) but when they don't, we feel like the world is coming to an end. The best thing to do is to let go and just see what we can do right now, in this very moment. Instead of stressing over unnecessary things!

One of my favourite songs is "Come What May" from Moulin Rouge. Although it's more of a love song, where a couple embraces what's coming ahead of them, I think we can also apply it in our lives. Embracing what's coming ahead of us, whatever it may be. Life can be as beautiful as we want it to be. But at the end of the day, life has its own definition of beauty too, that we have to see and accept.

Alright that's all for now! Just a random thought about what the flower has given me.