Be Like Bamboo
When my parents moved into their house over 30 years ago, they found that the previous owners planted an abundance of bamboo in the backyard. When I was younger, I remember my parents trying to dig up the bamboo to plant new things and I also remember them always complaining that it was so hard to get rid of the plant. Watching and listening to my parents complain and struggle to remove it, I thought it was such an annoying plant. That was until I moved into my first apartment where I walked past it every day and started to think it really was a beautiful plant. When I moved to the greater Los Angeles area, I visited arboretums and botanical gardens and found myself becoming fascinated by this grass (yes, it’s a grass, not a tree!).
My interest led to researching this amazing plant and I learned some interesting things:
- Bamboo grows everywhere and can endure cold winters and extremely hot summers.
- It grows very fast. Some bamboo can grow up to 100 feet and certain species can grow up to three feet in a day (It’s even possible to watch it grow right before your eyes!).
- It’s not as fragile as it appears. It can sometimes be the only plant left standing after a typhoon.
- In the winter, heavy snows weigh down and bend the plant, but as the snow becomes too heavy, it falls off and the bamboo springs back and snaps back up tall again.
There are so many more incredible things to know about bamboo and these are just a few, but what we see here is that bamboo is continually growing, despite its harsh environments. Hard times are expected to come, but it overcomes adversity and remains known as a survivor. Bamboo is durable, strong, flexible, and resilient.
Do YOU want to be more like bamboo?
If so, I invite you today to take a moment to write about how you may want to be more like bamboo:
“Bamboo bends with wind but will not break. The leaves blow gracefully in the wind and do not fall. Long after the storm passes, it still stands green and tall. It survives and therefore it endures…”*
I hope the next time you see bamboo, you look at it in a way you hadn’t before. Perhaps you admire it for its beauty, strength, and resilience as if to say, “I will not be defeated.”
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