We are all meant to be different…

I love to visit all types of gardens..

I love the saying “Compare = despair”. We know that we are all different and that we should all be different, but somehow, we keep coming back to judging those that aren’t like us. I need to remind myself of this often. I was thinking about this the other day and came up with another way to remind myself to stop judging and comparing.

Imagine you are an avid gardener. Your garden is beautiful, and you are very pleased that all of your hard work has paid off and your garden is exactly how you pictured it. It really could be on the cover of a house and garden magazine. 

Each afternoon you go for a walk in your neighborhood and look at all your neighbour’s gardens. You make mental notes of how they could improve their gardens, what is wrong with their gardens and what mistakes they have made.  The closer you look you cannot understand some of their plant choices or why some people don’t take more pride in their gardens.  If your get a chance to talk to any of your neighbour’s, you are happy to let them know what you think about each neighbour’s garden and what they should be doing to make it better. You are very keen to talk about how wonderful your garden is and that other styles of gardens are just not right.

Does thinking less of the other gardens make yours better? Does talking negatively about others garden’s make you feel really happy? Do you think your neighbour’s like to hear how good you are and how they don’t match your gardening talents and choices?  Do you think that everyone likes your garden style and that they should replicate everything you do?  Hopefully if you really think about it – you should be happy that the gardens are all different, you should understand that not everyone loves gardening and that they may like to use their time with family, friends or doing other hobbies. Hopefully you also realise that comparing everyone’s gardens does not make yours any better, the only thing to make your garden better is hard work and time. Hopefully you also realise that your neighbour’s don’t like being held up to your standards and maybe if you just talk to them about what they find important they may stay and chat with you longer.

The point I am trying to make is that we are all different and that is ok. We are meant to be different. Not everyone should be the same as us, not everyone likes what we like, not everyone has the same opinions and values and that is ok. By all means spend more time with those that are positive, that you admire and that bring you joy but don’t disregard others. We all can learn from others and their differences. It is our difference that can teach us the greatest lessons.

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