Might as Well Bloom! What a little flower taught me about love and lifetime

There is a little flower blooming.

Beautiful, isn’t she?

I watched her the other day and found myself thinking about something rather strange.

Blooming is terribly uneconomical.

Think about it.

A flower spends so much time gathering sunlight, drawing water from the earth, and growing toward the sky. She puts everything she has into producing a few beautiful petals.

And for what?

A few days of beauty?

Soon enough, those petals will fade and fall to the ground.

If flowers had accountants, I wonder what they would say.

Probably, “What a terrible investment!”

And yet, she blooms.

Not halfway. Not cautiously.

She gives it everything she’s got.

Perhaps she’s hoping for a butterfly to visit. Or a bee to carry her pollen somewhere beyond the garden.

Perhaps this is simply how life continues.

Watching her, I remembered an old Elvis Presley song, Can’t Help Falling in Love.

The song begins with a warning from wise men. Only fools rush into love.

And yet, the singer admits that he cannot help himself.

He knows what the wise men say. He understands the risk.

But he falls in love anyway.

Isn’t that interesting?

We humans are supposed to be sensible creatures. We calculate, compare, and worry about what we might gain or lose.

Especially as we get older.

We learn to protect ourselves. We become more careful with our time, our money, and sometimes even our hearts.

Perhaps that is wisdom.

But I wonder.

If we calculated everything, would we ever fall in love?

Would we plant a garden?

Would we spend months caring for a flower that might bloom for only a few days?

Elvis sings, “Like a river flows.”

I love that image.

A river doesn’t stop to calculate whether reaching the sea is worth the trouble.

It simply flows.

And the flower?

She simply blooms.

Of course, flowers have their own reasons for blooming. They are trying to reproduce, attract pollinators, and carry life into another season.

But from our human point of view, there is something wonderfully extravagant about it.

So much effort for something so brief.

Perhaps love is like that too.

We give our time, our attention, and sometimes our whole hearts to people and things without knowing what will come back to us.

No guarantees.

Sometimes we get hurt.

Sometimes nothing happens at all.

And sometimes, something beautiful grows.

I looked at the little flower again.

There she was, standing in my garden, putting on the finest show of her short life.

A little fool in love with being alive.

And I couldn’t help smiling.

After all, aren’t we a little like her?

We’re only born once.

Might as well bloom!

Breathe, Flow, Flower 🌱

A little space to breathe, reflect, and enjoy being alive.