Your Questions About Gardening

GardenersCardiff answers:

I’m sorry you are hurting right now.

I have trouble with bitterness sometimes too.

I am white, my dad was a college professor, i grew up in suburbia, and yet i grew up in poverty, severely neglected by my parents, started working when i was 13 so i had enough to eat… I could tell you some real horror stories. I finally finished a community college, but i paid my own way through working minimum wages and babysitting… I thought because of my dad i couldn’t even qualify for financial aid but i never had any money from him (it was a strange situation). Sometimes i ask myself WHY? How could he have money and care so little for his kids that we’d go hungry? Why did he make it harder for us to succeed in life than if he hadn’t been there at all? I’ve learned “why questions” usually takes my mind nowhere good. “How questions” are better. How am i going to succeed no matter what? How can i leave bitterness behind? How can i feel happy and fortunate today, just as things are?

Anyway, I don’t want to be bitter either. Bitterness just adds to the hardship we’ve already been through. I look at it as heavy stones in my pockets and in a sack on my back. I don’t want bitterness. I want to put the weight of it down and be free of this burden and get on to the good things i deserve. I’ve suffered enough, i don’t need to add to it by carrying anger and hurt.

I can’t tell you i’m free of bitterness, but i can tell you what i do that seems to help me feel better and lighter….

I think of my success against adversity. The first time i went to college, i dropped out… Unofficially… Leaving bad grades on my records. I was depressed, that’s why i dropped out. Small wonder. I’d been through a lot and was still going through a lot and without any support. But later, even though i’d messed up, i went back and faced it, cleared up the problems, retook classes to get rid of the bad grades, and finished Phi Theta Kappa. I had to work my a$$ off to do it. And i know that accomplishment is MINE ALL MINE. Not my dad’s. And i had to leave my excuses at the door to do it.

And i’m sure you have accomplishments, too… That are all YOURS. It’s not just the accomplishment, you see, it’s what YOU know you had to struggle with to succeed that makes you proud of yourself. It makes you a deeper person… More valuable than spoon-fed idiots who are a dime a dozen. Did you know that more self-made millionaires were born in poverty than were born comfortably? It’s true! But that’s just outward success. Things we go through makes us more compassionate towards others. I think that matters a lot more.

I also… And this was hard… Try to remember all the good from my family and my experiences growing up, and i try not to overlook any advantage or resource i have, no matter how small. No one’s youth is completely grim, no matter how bad it was. Like Oprah said once, “What you focus on, increases.” All the more reason not to focus on the things that make us feel bitter, but instead on the things that make us feel grateful and lucky. Don’t focus on what disadvantages you’ve had, look at your blessings and resources and your own talents and heart and mind. Everyone has resources… You have people in your life, you have yourself, you have things you’ve learned that are useful. Build on that good.

I’m glad you asked this question… Because it reminded me of some things i need to remember. I’m open to messages, if you’d like to talk some more, and i hope you feel better soon.

GardenersCardiff answers:

I think you should be riding your own horse in the riding lessons- that way you would get to ride your own horse, and your horse would benefit from the experience of being ridden with other horses in that kind of atmosphere, which would make her a better riding horse for you. And if you are having trouble with her during the lesson, your instructor would be able to help you fix the trouble.

If you want, you could still ride the riding school horse once a month, but if you did ride your own horse in the lessons, your horse would quickly become a better riding horse.

GardenersCardiff answers:

Those types of people are ignorant. Its sad to say that it is a stereotype people give others based on a musical genre. I am a fan of hip-hop culture all together. I get told I’m “acting black” when I go out to the night club and dance to hip hop music just because people say I dance like a black girl. I think it is rude to put any one in any type of category, and if someone has a problem with it its their own ignorance of not knowing anything!