Seeing The Good In Life

A woman stopped by the local florist to buy a freshly cut bouquet. After paying, she started to leave, but paused to watch the old flower merchant who was carefully picking all the dried leaves and stems from the lower portion of the potted plant that seemed to have no life.

“Why are you wasting your time on that dead thing?” she asked.

The florist replied, “It is not dead. Oh, some of its leaves have finished with their lives, but see, up here, there is still some green showing in the stalk. I expect that with care and love this plant will live and produce flowers for many more years.”

“Young lady,” he continued, “there are many people like plants.”

“They suffer what is a terrible loss – perhaps a child or a wife or husband – and they allow what has happened to turn them into a shriveled stalk, empty of hope and life.”

“On the other hand, there are many, don’t you know, who will suffer the dried-up parts to just drop off and then they go right on living and breathing and singing and smiling as they keep producing lovely flowers, year after year.”

Adapted from The Twelfth Angel

Og Mandino

One small act, like that of the flower merchant, can make one big difference, in a day, in a life.

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