The bamboo and the cherry blossom tree

In my garden there stands a beautiful cherry blossom tree. It is bursting with pink at the moment, although I’m noticing that it’s also transitioning really quickly through the blossoming process, and soon it will be covered in leaves.

Further down the garden, there is a row of black stalked bamboo, which reaches some 9 or 10 feet in the air. The gorgeous green leaves rustle in the wind, the bamboo swaying this way and that in the wind. We moved into this house in December and the bamboo was as green and healthy then as it is now.

Today in a coaching session, a client and I were talking about comparisonitis – the ways in which we often compare ourselves to other people, judging one or the other to be better or more worthy, thinking that because someone else can do x, y or z, we are somehow less than them if we don’t have the exact same skill set or capability.

Staring out my office window at the bamboo, I thought about how ridiculous it would be if the bamboo were to say, “Why aren’t I like that cherry blossom tree? I’m just not good enough as I am.”

The bamboo is, and always will be, bamboo. The cherry blossom is and will always be cherry blossom. One is not better or more worthy than the other. Each is unique and valuable in its own ways.

I love the cherry blossom for its outrageous beauty in March, for the way the closed buds burst forth with colour and light, attracting giant bumble bees and putting a burst of bright and pale pink into our back garden.

But I love the bamboo too. I love the solidness of its canes, the way it arches and sways in the wind but will not yield to pressure by bending or snapping. I love its height, and the rustle of the leaves, and the way it reminds me of a song my dad pretty much always plays on Sunday lunches at his house (which, in the pandemic, I’ve missed so much). The bamboo isn’t perhaps as ‘beautiful’ at first glance, but it’s absolutely stunning in its own right.

What if we could remember that we are like the things of nature that surround us? Some of us are here to be oaks, some are pines, some are cherry blossom and some are bamboo. Each one of us unique, offering specific qualities and gifts to the world.

Would remembering our uniqueness help us let go of comparing and despairing? As Rumi once wrote, comparison is the thief of joy. And maybe there is joy to be found in celebrating the uniqueness of each and every person we meet – and the person we are. For the truth is, where the bamboo and the cherry blossom are one solid thing, we contain multitudes.

(Top photo by Eleonora Albasi on Unsplash. Thank you Eleonora. Second photo by AJ on Unsplash. Thank you AJ.)