Yesterday I pulled weeds. I made my mind up to tackle the weeds before they took over the lawn. I learned something that now, of course, seems obvious: pull weeds early and they are a cinch to get rid of. Let them take root and a battle is in store. The weeds/Life metaphor kept going through my mind as I wiped away the sweat that was rolling down my forehead into my eyes. I thought of how James Allen, in his little book, As a Man Thinketh, compared the mind to a garden.
"A man's mind may be likened to a garden, which may be intellectually cultivated or allowed to run wild; but whether cultivated or neglected, it must, it will, bring forth. If no useful seeds are put into it, then an abundance of weed seeds will fall therein and will continue to produce their kind."
The tiny beginnings of a weed pulled out easily, root and all. Those large ones I hacked and hacked on from every angle with the garden hoe then I twisted and pulled, sometimes with my whole body. At times I thought, these weeds might just win.
My own habitual thoughts came to mind. I had become so very negative at one time. Being positive almost seemed to be a mountain I couldn't climb, much like the embedded weeds I couldn't pull loose from their stronghold. As I pulled, dug, twisted, ripped, and hacked at the weeds, I decided I would not give up. I would win, not the weeds! Then I made the same pact with myself in weeding out the negative thoughts and attitudes, vowing to replace them with positive ones.
Uprooting negative thoughts that have entrenched themselves in the mind may take work, but it is time and effort well spent. Like most people, I prefer flowers over weeds, and positive thoughts are the flowers of the mind; they are perennial, spread joy and inner peace, and the more they grow the more they multiply, leaving no room for the weeds to take root.
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