pulling up your shoots to help them grow

impatient overenthusiasm has a Chinese idiom - 拔苗助长

The farmer in this story really, really wanted his crops to grow faster. He was getting impatient. It was agonizing to have to wait to see the fruits of his labor.

He was a cheerful fellow, always industrious and willing to put in the labor, but had a hard life. He toiled under the hot sun each day. You can imagine it was frying more than just his scalp — his morale was also dried up to a crisp. He was short on time, for he worried what would happen if his fields didn’t do their job. All the seeds he was planting… all the work he’d put in… what if it was going to waste?

What then?

This farmer was scared. The longer he didn’t see his harvest, the more he was getting antsy. This farmer wanted to get creative about how to solve his anxieties.

One day, he had an idea —

He thought it a good idea to give them a boost.

He saw the shoots that had already sprouted, and he decided to pull them up a bit. If they get some help, he thought, then they’ll grow faster. It is my duty to support them!

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And what happens when I pull myself up too fast?

What happens when I am eager to grow, impatient as hell, wondering where my harvest is?

I fry under the hot sun. My lack of roots sends me off kilter. I’m exposed to the elements, and I’m robbing myself of nutrients.

I totally mean well! Like the farmer, I am only trying to hasten my progress because I want the fruit to help myself and others. The farmer wanted to feed his family; I want to gain influence to help my own tribe.

Comparison is the result of impatience. The farmer looks at other people’s crops and wonders why they’re growing so fast; I look at how hard I work and get frustrated if someone else gets it “easier.”

But I halt every time I want to “take the seemingly easy way forward” — the way that isn’t true to my roots.

I contemplate writing clickbait stuff I know will do well on Twitter, selling courses I’m not ready to teach, boasting about offers I’m not ready to promote, buying Instagram ads —

And I know that it’s not going to get me the result I want. Rushing the process of growth, as it comes in its own time, won’t make my crops any greener. In fact, it might kill the wellspring of creativity that I’m tapped into right now.

The only thing I can do is see where all the inspiration is coming from. It comes from a sense of myself-ness. These crops are mine, and yet they also belong to Father Time and Mother Earth. Who’s to say that I should bend my gifts to my will and try to make the process speed up at my beck and call?

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Otherwise, in my haste, my crops will wilt and die.

The thing I take for granted that I can’t see — the system of roots they’re connected to underneath, the network of nutrients that sustains their very life force — is what I may end up uprooting.

A cautionary tale to myself as I search for artificial indicators I’ll reap what I sow…

Because sometimes I’ll end up prematurely reaping myself right into destruction, and have to start all over again!