The Garden and Its Rulebook

There once was a Garden that wanted everything just so.

Every flower had its place.

Every path was trimmed.

The hedges were straight, the soil tidy, the rows uniform.

The Garden had a rulebook — carefully written, well intentioned, and proudly enforced.

It told each plant where it belonged, how tall it could grow, and how much space it was allowed to take.

At first, everything looked beautiful.

Visitors admired the symmetry.

The order.

The calm.

But over time, the Garden began to thin.

The roses bloomed, but without fragrance.

The grass stayed green, but shallow-rooted.

The flowers survived — yet none truly flourished.

The Garden noticed and worked harder.

More rules.

Tighter boundaries.

Better enforcement.

Still, the Garden grew pale.

One day, the Garden spotted something unexpected.

In a corner where the rules had been forgotten — where wildflowers had slipped between rows — growth was abundant. Colors were deeper. Stems stronger. Roots intertwined.

The plants there did not follow the rulebook.

They leaned into one another.

They took up uneven space.

They grew in ways that hadn’t been planned.

And yet, they thrived.

The Garden contemplated its flowers and came to the realization that...

...the problem wasn’t the plants.

It was the insistence that every living thing grow the same way.

The rulebook was not wrong — but it was incomplete.

So the Garden loosened the rows.

And was allowed to be a little messy.

A little uneven.

A little alive.

And slowly, color returned.

Not everything that looks orderly is healthy

Not everything that grows wild is wrong.

Sometimes, flourishing begins when we stop forcing uniformity — and start honoring what each thing needs to grow.