The Chinese Bamboo Tree

This is not a story of mine.  It may not even be attributed to the correct author here, I don't know for sure.  I do know this.  I have read this story a handful of times and each time I read it, I am struck by the simplicity of it but also the essential lesson to be learned.  Accordingly, this is the time of the year where most people have either abandoned their resolutions or promises for the New Year or are struggling to sustain them (myself included).  What this story and the greater principles of life tell us is that like the Chinese Bamboo tree, growth is more a by product of purpose than it is of instant gratification.  On a related note, I've started a personal Blog that you can read at www.RyanFrance.com (on passion, on purpose, on becoming the best version of yourself and my journey to do the same).  Check it out.

The Chinese Bamboo Tree  (By Charlie Dexter)

Zig Ziglar, the famous motivational speaker, once told the story of the Chinese Bamboo Tree. It seems that this tree when planted, watered, and nurtured for an entire growing season doesn't outwardly grow as much as an inch.

Then, after the second growing season, a season in which the farmer takes extra care to water, fertilize and care for the bamboo tree, the tree still hasn't sprouted. So it goes as the sun rises and sets for four solid years. The farmer and his wife have nothing tangible to show for all of their labor trying to grow the tree.

Then, along comes year five. In the fifth year that Chinese bamboo tree seed finally sprouts and the bamboo tree grows up to eighty feet in just one growing season! Or so it seems….

Did the little tree lie dormant for four years only to grow exponentially in the fifth? Or, was the little tree growing underground, developing a root system strong enough to support its potential for  outward growth in the fifth year and beyond?

The answer is, of course, obvious. Had the tree not developed a strong unseen foundation

it could not have sustained its life as it grew. Had the Chinese bamboo farmer dug up his little seed every year to see if it was growing, he would have stunted the tree's growth as surely as a caterpillar is doomed to a life on the ground if it is freed from its struggle inside a cocoon prematurely.The struggle in the cocoon is what gives the future butterfly the wing power to fly.

We live in a quick-fix society. We get frustrated if we have to wait more than 2 minutes for service or a stop light to change. We want instant solutions to every complex problem and every fractured relationship. In short - we want it all now!

Maybe its time to reflect on an old, old poem by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow that is as true today as it was when he wrote it over 100 years ago:

"The heights by great men reached and kept 

Were not attained by sudden flight, 

But they, while their companions slept, 

Toiled ever upward through the night."