One of Oprah’s popular quotes is, “You can have it all. Just not all at once.”
Sometimes this reality really frustrates me – especially in the context of work and investing.
But, gardening is a great teacher of this principle – and its importance.
Last year I started a garden in a small part of a friend’s back field. He had tilled it under and fertilized it in early Spring. But, by the time I was invited to it in May, it was less soil and more of a quasi-rock-garden glued together by hardened dirt.
This would be the first time that I was gardening directly into a field’s soil, and not a cute little 3’ x 8’ raised bed (which I had done several times before). Of the over 2,000 square feet, I managed to get some tomatoes, cucumbers, green beans, lettuce and potatoes planted before it was too late in the season.
But, it was a struggle. Just digging a square foot hole for each tomato plant took a half-hour. And even then, I don’t think those roots ever grew outside of that small square that I personally
filled with soil and compost and amendments.
The garden grew but it didn’t flourish. And I collected about one-tenth of the small harvest, as the deer and rabbits grabbed the other 90%.
But this year is different. This year, I could start planning the space and prepping the soil in March. (Fall was not an option due to scheduling conflicts.)
This year, the soil is drastically different. Having been left fallow for weeds to grow and die over the winter (thus somewhat protecting the soil during the harshness of winter), and having not been tilled under, the top six inches of the cold, damp soil now has plenty of earthworms.
The several small “beds” that I had made last year are now mostly rock-free, with a much-improved loose, better-draining soil.
The new beds that I am creating are so much easier to turn-over the top 4”-6” than last year. And the rocks loosen and reveal themselves with less effort.
In addition, this year I have time to feed the worms and thus, the soil. If you are a gardener (or are married to one), then you know the special affection that we have for earthworms. So, I try to feed mine well. Today I gave them a decent buffet of their favorites – from coffee grounds to shredded leaves and kitchen veggie scraps – well BEFORE planting season arrives.
By the time May 25th comes (my locally-accepted best planting time), my favorite garden work-horse friends will have turned those goodies into high quality soil for my baby plants.
BUT, even starting in March, I probably still won’t have time to fill the entire space with prepared planting beds. So, I need to accept and be happy about the new beds that I’ve created and the progress that I’ve made in improving last year’s beds.
This brings us back to Oprah’s quote. In the first year, I could not “have it all.” (Of course, does this truth ever stop us from “wanting it all” in the first year? Nope. Not even a little.)
In the second year, I could have:
- much-improved soil
- more time to make it even better
- the ability to leverage last year’s efforts
- additional beds, and
- time to plan a deer deterrence plan
If there is a next year with this garden space, then that 3rd year will have the benefit of two years worth of lessons and soil-building.
So, the reason that we can’t have it all, all at once, is that we need time for learning lessons, for applying that knowledge, and then for expanding the scope of application – thus leading to new lessons learned.
But, the flip-side is also true. Our ATTEMPTS to “have it all, all at once” will actually PREVENT us from having ANY success. We will rob ourselves of our own success potential.
If I had attempted to cultivate that entire 2,000 square foot space, then I would not have planted anything last year because it would have been September before I was done pulling rocks out of the clay.
If I had become so discouraged with last year’s lackluster results that I decided to abandon the garden, then I would have prevented ANY future possibility of success. The lessons learned from the first year’s experience would have been wasted due to lack of application.
If my impatience prompted me to do things the same way as last year but with a stubbornness that deluded me into believing that this year would be different simply because I said so, then I would not be any closer to “having it all” than I did last year.
The reason Oprah’s quote is so popular is because we all struggle with our own impatience. Since the Industrial Revolution when our culture shifted away from the delayed-gratification of the agriculture-centered human experience of thousands of years, we have been allowed to insulate ourselves from the reality of the necessity and importance of the elapse of time to attain and achieve our goals.
However, the even larger truth behind Oprah’s quote is this – that in the elapse of time to achieve our goals, we find incredible satisfaction and unexpected rewarding experiences in the transition between now and then.
And for this, we return to today’s garden experience for examples –
- the satisfaction in developing the ideas and doing the work of gathering “food” for my
soil-builder earthworm friends - the happiness in finding an improved soil in last year’s beds
- the excitement of breaking ground on new beds
- and the anticipation of beautiful loamy soil in two months (thanks again to the
earthworms’ work)
All of this contributed to the happy, bubbly person sitting next to my husband on our date night. The necessity of TIME in the PROCESS of “having it all, just not all at once” gives us the time and space for the joy of improvement, expectation, and excitement. In other words, the essence of A Wonderful Life.
So, whether it’s a career goal, a relationship quality, or a financial target, our best chance of success is to allow this truth to work for us, not against us.
