Cultivating Happiness (Plants)

Some will say that happiness and freedom involve making conscious choices.

Others will refer to this as the pleasure of enjoying taking care of things and cultivating them, in other words, the ❤️🙏art of cultivating happiness.

It can be interpreted in some ways as being able to understand that to do "something new" or change something in your life (or even at work), you may have to change something right now, or remove something, or become better at doing something so you can have more time. It also means that when you make the decision, you consciously know that there are certain things that will be affected by it—maybe people around you, maybe your work, maybe your future, maybe other things that you do or how you do them.

In some way, it can be interpreted as making conscious decisions; happiness sometimes is just knowing what you want now (what you are adding, changing, or removing from your life) and consciously making that decision, knowing that it is possible and how it could affect everything else, so you know what to expect and are happy with the decisions you made without regrets.

Others will just interpret this as the ability to cultivate happiness. In some way, our happiness is similar to the plants we own. 🪴🌳

🪴Plants represent things in your life that you want to maintain, grow, and cultivate; they can be relationships, things related to work, finances, or even material things.

All plants will need certain care, but not only that, they will need your time. Nothing will remain or grow if it's not cultivated and treated with love, and to cultivate and love 'something,' you need time. Of course, not all 'plants' need the same amount of time or the same type of care, so this framework helps you use these plants as a metaphor for 'all the things' in your life that you want to keep in your life.

To start using this framework, consider all the things you want to keep in your life or add, and even start considering which ones you need to remove, improve, or change. It's not going to be easy; you may start by writing a list or adding multiple sticky notes to the board without touching the plants section just yet.

When you have the list, think about the following statements:

These are just some self-reflective sentences that may spark something in you, or maybe not. You can take them or leave them.

Start writing the names of the selected 'things' that you want to take care of right now and in the future. If you need more plants, that's fine; unlock the plants and copy and paste them.

In general, you should focus on the big things; there's no need to say that you want to sleep 8 hours if that is already obvious to you. You may add your husband, your kids, maybe your friends, maybe that project that is very important to you, maybe a sport, ...

Now think about 🙂 what it would need to thrive, and consider the time you think it will need from you. While you are doing this, also write down how much time you think you can give it. When you are done, evaluate if you have time for everything. Is this realistic?

🥅 Is there a new goal that you have in mind, a new thing you want to do, or something you want to achieve or even a new person in your life? How are you going to adapt things?