This spring, I worked hard in the garden.
I improved the soil, spread well-rotted manure, planted, watered and watched. Like many gardeners, I thought my task was to help the plants grow.
Then something unexpected happened.
There came a moment when there was almost nothing left to do.
The tomatoes, peppers, cucumbers and fruit trees no longer needed my effort. They simply continued growing, each in its own rhythm. My role had changed. I was no longer making things happen. I was observing life unfolding.
That was the discovery.
I had never made the garden grow.
The seeds already knew what to do. The plants carried within them everything they needed to become themselves. My work had been to prepare the conditions in which that growth could happen.
I began to wonder how often this is true beyond the garden.
Perhaps ideas grow the same way.
Perhaps relationships do.
Perhaps people do.
Not every discovery changes the world.
Some quietly change us.