Ever wonder whether the small things you do every day make a difference? Read this story:
The Water Hyacinth
Once there was a little water hyacinth that grew near the edge of a big pond. It had dreams of seeing the other side of the pond, but when it murmured to itself about these dreams, the water just laughed and laughed and lapped at it dismissively. The other side indeed…for a tiny plant that couldn’t even move? Impossible!
The water hyacinth is a beautiful plant that can typically be found floating on the surface of ponds in warm climates. This particular plant was a perfect specimen: very beautiful, very small, and very delicate.
However- and this was something the water didn’t know- the water hyacinth is also one of the most productive plants on earth, with a reproductive rate that astonishes botanists and ecologists. A single plant can produce as many as five thousand seeds, but its preferred method for colonizing a new area is not to cast its seeds willy nilly, but instead to grow by doubling itself, sending out short runner stems that become “daughter plants.”
The first day this little water hyacinth appeared, nobody but the water even noticed it was there. Nobody noticed it on the second day either, as it doubled, not on the third or the fourth, as it doubled again and then once more. It was so insignificant, in fact, that for the first two weeks, even though it doubled in size every day, you would have had to search hard to see it at all.
By day 15 it had reproduced to cover barely one square foot of water, a tiny dollop of lavender-pink dotting the pond’s glassy green surface. On day 20, two-thirds of the way through the month, one person passing by the pond noticed the little patch of foliage floating off to the side, but mistook it for a lost bath towel or perhaps a discarded piece of wrapping paper.
More than a week later, on day 29, half the pond’s surface was still open water. And on day 30, just twenty-four hours later, the water’s surface had totally disappeared. The entire pond had been overtaken by a rich blanket of purple-pink hyacinth.
The take-away? Keep going. What you’re doing is working, even if you can’t see it right away. There’s no telling when it’ll all come together.
*Story compliments of The Slight Edge by Jeff Olson.