Hello. I’m a flower. A beautiful, one-of-a-kind flower. If you saw me, you would have to stop and look. Even if you were running late, you would have to just look for at least a second. You might even want to snap a photo.
But I was not always a flower. I was once a tiny little seed that someone planted in this garden, under fertile soil. But I was a very unhappy seed,
because every time I looked up, all I saw were the big flowers growing all around me. “Why am I stuck here?” I said to my seed neighbors. “I want to be up there! I want to be a flower!”
“But you can’t be up there yet,” they said to me, “because you are a seed. You have to stay underground and wait until you grow. Stop being such an
anxious little seed!”
So one day, finally finally finally, after months of impatience and whining and giving all the other seeds headaches, I began to sprout. But still, I was very unhappy. “What is the matter with you now?” my seed neighbors asked. “Look at you. You’re starting to sprout!”
“But I don’t care,” I said. “Sprouting is not good enough. Not good enough at all! I want to be a flower, not a sprout! I told you this the last time we spoke!”
My seed neighbors moaned. “Before, you were an anxious little seed,” they said. “And now, you are nothing but an anxious little sprout!”
“So be it,” I said.
Then, one day, after weeks and weeks of further complaining and
whining, I became a bud. The sun was shining upon me, and my bud neighbors were cheering happily. “Look at us,” they said. “We were seeds, and then we
sprouted . . . and now we are buds! Is this not great?”
“No,” I said. “No, it is not great at all.”
“Oh, what now? What could be the problem now?” they asked.
“It’s exactly what you think I’m going to say,” I said. “I have no interest in being a bud. I have no more interest in being a bud than I had in being a sprout. I want to be a flower. I want to be a flower already!”
“Nothing is ever good enough for you,” my bud neighbors said. “You should be grateful the sun is kind enough to shine upon such a miserable bud as
yourself!”
So, time continued onward, until at last, the day arrived when I became a flower. And a beautiful flower at that. And I was surrounded in my garden by all my neighbors, who had also grown into beautiful flowers. Everyone was so joyous, dancing in the sunshine. “Finally,” my flower neighbors said to me. “Your dream has come true! You must be so happy!”
But no. It was not my dream come true. Because just as I was about to be happy, some lady came around the garden and started picking flowers, but she did not pick me. “Can you believe it?” I said to my flower neighbors. “Can you believe this lady? She does not pick me? Does she have any idea how long it has taken for me to be a flower, and she walks by and nothing? Not even a glance? What is wrong with me? Am I not good enough?”
And so, once again, I was upset. I waited my whole life to be a flower, and I was an unhappy flower.
A few weeks later, my flower neighbor was getting fed up with me. “I have had it,” he said. “I have had to endure your misery since we were planted in the soil, and I am tired of it. I am very much tired of your unhappiness!”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” I said. “I am unhappy. I am sorry for you that you have me as your neighbor.”
“I have a question for you,” he said.
“What is it?” I said. “Make it quick. Can’t you see I’m busy sulking?”
“I want you to look at me and tell me what you see.”
“What do you think I see? I see a beautiful, happy flower!”
“But I was not picked by the lady,” he said. “And I look just like you. The only difference between us is that I am happy and you are not happy. You were in such a big hurry to grow that you missed out on being a seed, you missed out on being a sprout, on being a bud, and you are almost going to miss out on being a flower. Do you not see how you are wasting your time?”
I had to admit, he had a point. So I said nothing.
“Why don’t you say something?” he said.
“If I had something to say, I would say it.”
“You are impossible.”
“So be it,” I said.
“Why don’t you try it out?” he said. “See if you can be happy being a
flower just for one day. And, if you are still unhappy after one day of trying, then go back to being an unhappy flower and I will leave you alone. I promise.”
“OK,” I said. “I will do it. Only so that you will leave me alone once and for all when tomorrow I become unhappy once again.”
“Fine.”
“Fine.”
“. . . So I forgot to ask. How do I be happy?”
“How do you be happy? You just be happy, that’s how! What a question!”
“Just like that. Just be happy?”
“Just . . . be happy!”
So I gave it a try. A deal was a deal. I told myself I was happy, even though, to be honest, I felt like the most ridiculous flower in the garden. But when I began to look around as a happy flower, something unexpected happened. It suddenly occurred to me that I was exactly where I had always wanted to be—I was a beautiful flower in a beautiful garden, surrounded by other beautiful flowers, all of us growing in the beautiful green grass with golden rays of sunshine warming our leaves—and I became so happy that I started to cry with joy. “I am so
happy,” I exclaimed to my flower neighbors. “Life . . . is so wonderful !”
And they all started to clap for me.
“What are you clapping for?” I said. “You should all be ashamed of
yourselves! All this time I wasted. Why didn’t you tell me?! How could you have let me be unhappy for so long? I almost missed my whole life!”
My flower neighbors sighed. “You are impossible,” they said. “Let us just be grateful that you are happy now.”
And so I thanked my flower neighbor. “Thank you,” I said, “for teaching me how to be happy. I will forever be grateful.”
“You are welcome,” he said.
And ever since that day, I have been a beautiful, happy flower. And I tell this story, just in case there are any anxious little seeds out there: Please, be happy, little seeds . . . be happy right now, wherever you are. Because life is
wonderful—for a seed, a sprout, a bud—and a flower!
-JLK
All episodes written, performed and produced by Jessica Laurel Kane, and the music was made by Jerome Rossen at Freshmade Music.