Tend Your Garden

Tend Your Garden

My fundamental belief is that each one of us is responsible for our response to what happens in our lives.     I also believe that we are responsible for the consequences of our actions.  Life is not fair.  There are circumstances that one has no control over.

 I have had my fair share! Examples are my parents, grandparents and guardian all died before I was 18 years old.    Another that seemed unfair was as an adult I bought a house and spent £60,000 renovating it.  Then the local authority chose to compulsorily purchase the whole row of houses, and ‘gave me’ £13,000.

But that is nothing compared with my new neighbours, a sister and a brother, who were hit by a drunken van driver who was head on, on the wrong side of the road.  She had a broken back; her brother was in hospital for six months. Her brother is now in a wheelchair permanently disabled and all but blind. four years on they are still fighting for compensation   The life of the brother and sister were, in an instance, permanently changed.  He now works with his computer and she, despite constant pain, continues with her crafting.
They are amazingly content.

But then there is another acquaintance who has had a lot of spinal trouble and was offered physiotherapy and help. He did not do the exercises.  He chose to pay for a spinal operation.  He was given weeks of aftercare but was told that he must walk and exercise if he is to recover.  He exercised for a couple of weeks and then gave up: too hard.  He now walks around, with difficulty, on two crutches, and has bought himself a motor chair.  He and his wife are far from content (she because she ‘has to’ look after him she says) and they attribute blame elsewhere.

These examples are to illustrate the consequences of our responses. First we have to accept any new situation and then we have choices.  New negative situations could be as a result of those choices (I have had many as a result of my being naive and making the wrong decisions) and then we have to make even more choices.

David Hume, the philosopher once said, “Reason ought to be the slave of passions”.   In humans, reason – that is trusting our faculties – is the best way to achieve happiness.   However, he argues that reason is not enough to motivate action, and invariably it is emotions (passions) drive us.  So strong emotions like anger, revenge and pride can easily take over. 

To achieve happiness we need to think rationally.  That is to actively look for reasons for our actions.  (Even this is fraught as some people perceive invalid arguments as valid ones.  These people are often part of a cult)

I remember learning that top philosophers so often lost faith in humans and concluded ‘Just tend your garden’ (this is what I am doing in the image above).

This of course this is also a metaphor.  We need to be prepared to look at ourselves, dispassionately and with reason.   But Hume argued that we need passion (preferably positive ones!) to provide the drive for the actions to achieve our goals, so they must work in partnership.

If we are prepared to do this we are well on our way to achieving contentment regardless of the circumstances.