Kinetic Writer

“The best time to plant a tree was 20 years ago. The second best time is now.”

- Chinese proverb

I love a good proverb, and this is one. It got me thinking about seizing opportunities that present themselves now rather than dwelling on missed opportunities.

To use planting a tree as a metaphor for writing, I technically planted a seed to become a writer by majoring in English/Creative Writing in college. But I was too lazy and afraid of failure to fertilize the soil or water it regularly, so my writing seed became a dormant shell. I thought about the shell often, but I focused on my initial failure and it only made me feel guilty.

Then I found myself with a job where I tended to a company’s writing seeds in the soil close to where I had planted my seed. I gained confidence in my abilities as a corporate arborist. Then, one sunny day, I challenged myself to start watering my personal writing seed again.

And I discovered that I enjoyed a relaxed, one-day-at-a-time pace, and that even though my tree wasn’t growing as quickly as I desired or the exact form I’d expected, it was still growing.

A proverb is a short piece of wisdom that usually conveys a didactic message. “The second-best time is now” struck me as a wonderful lesson in forgiving oneself for missed opportunities and encouraging action in the present.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 4th, 2008 at 7:00 am and is filed under metaphor, philosophy. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.