Poison Ivy Garden

I’ve been in a lot of environments where a military grade preparedness and neatness and discipline were needed and celebrated. I’m terrible at having a perfect record in behavior, in attendance, in politeness. I’ve always tried to compete and pass myself off as this person who’s so perfect! What a lie. I’m creative. Why didn’t I stop competing and rather, start playing and exploring. I need art, stories, imagination for my sanity. Let it be!
Someone who doesn’t know diddly tells me I’m selfish. So I take a job meant for a bleeding heart person. It doesn’t feel right and no matter how hard I try I cannot do it as well as someone else might. I’m proud of how unhappy I am with it and continue hoping to prove to whom I don’t even know that I’m a good person. Of course it will never be enough for me to believe I’m not selfish. Dumb people became teachers so they can give horrible advice and feedback. Sometimes weak people become police and are bullies. People struggling with gross tendencies become priests. Maybe they thought that by taking that job they would stamp out the bad. We try to prove what we are not and that’s how we hurt ourselves and others.
where does a person find weeds? In the middle of a wood or field? In an abandoned lot? We find them where some person tried to control everything. Maybe they didn’t like the dandelion and plantains. So they bulldozed everything. A year later there are thistles and poison ivy growing. Ideally we would curate and contain what we naturally have rather than utterly destroy and try to start over. Apply Some gentle pest control, add some borders around the mint that would take over the whole yard, lattice the best parts so they Don’t get too top heavy and flop onto the ground. Prune the out of control growth but don’t yank the roses out by the roots! A sprits of prudence and a shovelful of self control is all that’s needed. Display but don’t destroy. Contain but don’t crater.
When we try too hard to remake ourselves the perfect way we would want, we end up destroying all that was good with very few benefits. Or even when there is a poison plant that needs to be destroyed we think that by covering it with sand and putting a wooden border around it that the perceptions of a sandbox will be the cure. This self improvement garbage hurts what is good and legitimate in us. It is suicide of the good parts of our personalities that God planted. We think we know better and we make ourselves miserable, ugly and unlovable.
Only weed what is truly poison. Don’t disguise the poison and destroy the harmless weeds. Think!