Last week, my husband came home with a plant. Yesterday, I texted him that it was possibly the best decision of our marriage so far.
That may be a slight exaggeration… but the truth is that one small plant has radically changed how I feel every day.
Let me explain. Most of my days are spent working from home – (it’s a choice I’m grateful to have and not a complaint) – particularly one spot in our tiny flat. And for the last year and half, I have sat in that spot and stared at a very unsightly pile of cords coming from a plug hub.
I’m the type to be affected by my environment. Visual clutter stresses me out, so it really bothered me. But I just figured that there was nothing I could do about those cords. I just had to live with it.
Every day, that messy corner was in my line of sight. Every day, it irked me, like a scratchy tag on an otherwise lovely piece of clothing. Every day, I just lived with it.
Until, one day last week, my husband said, “why don’t we just move the cords?”
Facepalm! Talk about ridiculously obvious. Why hadn’t I thought of it before? It wasn’t like the plug hub was glued there. We put it there, because it seemed like a good place for it when we moved in, since it was next to the cable box on the wall, but it wasn’t as though it absolutely couldn’t go anywhere else.
We moved the hub and pile of cords to the other corner and everything still works. I was left with a plain corner containing only a much-less-offensive-but-still-not-pretty cable box to stare at.
Then, he bought the plant. Which fits perfectly in the corner. It’s a lovely plant, it covers the cable box, and there are no more cords in sight.
Every day, I sit in the corner and stare at the plant. Every day, I am happy.
This whole plant metaphor for life has not escaped my notice. How often have I just decided to live with something that bothered me because I assumed, wrongly, that I couldn’t change it?
Now it has me wondering. Is there anything else I am “just living with”? Is there anything else that could be very easily changed with little effort and great benefit?
What about you? Is there anything you are just living with?
