The Daffodil Principle

   Even with ‘Mom’ being reluctant, they went. After about twenty minutes, they turned onto a small gravel road and saw a small church. On the far side of the church there was a hand lettered sign with an arrow that read, “Daffodil Garden.”  They got out of the car, each took a child’s hand, and walked down the path. Then, as they turned a corner, they looked up and gasped. Before them lay the most glorious sight.

    It looked as though someone had taken a great vat of gold and poured it over the mountain peak and its surrounding slopes. The flowers were planted in majestic, swirling patterns, great ribbons of deep orange, creamy white, lemon yellow, salmon pink, and saffron and butter yellow. Each different-colored variety was planted in large groups so that it swirled and flowed like its own river with its own unique hue. There were five acres of flowers.

     “Who did this?” she asked.  “Just one woman,” Carolyn answered. “She lives on the property. That’s her home.” Carolyn pointed to a well-kept A-frame house, small and modestly sitting in the midst of all that glory. They walked up to the house.

     On the patio was a sign “Answers to the Questions I Know You Are Asking”, was the headline.

The first answer was a simple one. “50,000 bulbs,” it read.
The second answer was, “One at a time, by one woman. Two hands, two feet, and one brain.”
The third answer was, “Began in 1958.”

     That moment was a life-changing experience. This woman who, more than forty years before, had begun, one bulb at a time, to bring her vision of beauty and joy to an obscure mountaintop. Planting one bulb at a time, year after year, this unknown woman had forever changed the world in which she lived. One day at a time, she had created something of extraordinary magnificence, beauty, and inspiration. The principle her daffodil garden taught is one of the greatest principles of life.

    That is, learning to move toward our goals and desires one step at a time–often just one baby-step at a time–and learning to love the doing, learning to use the accumulation of time. When we multiply tiny pieces of time with small increments of daily effort, we too will find we can accomplish magnificent things. We can change the world.

    What might you have accomplished if you had thought of a wonderful goal thirty-five or forty years ago and had worked away at it ‘one bulb at a time’ through all those years? Just think what you might have been able to achieve!”

     So here’s the message of the day “Start NOW”!

    It’s pointless to think of the lost hours of yesterdays. The way to make learning a lesson of life instead of a cause for regret is to ask,
“How can I put this to use today?”