Adapt or give up, which do you choose?

I came across this tree today. At some point in time it would have been upright and growing in a “normal” fashion. It’s roots however were based in a crumbling bank and perhaps were not as strong or deep as they could be. It looks as though the tree fell over, quite a few years ago and it’s root system is now more than half out of the ground.

The tree could have laid there feeling sorry for itself and thought “Typical, just as I am getting going, a storm has knocked me down. I will just lay here and give up” By the looks of things though, the tree thought otherwise and decided to take a good look at itself in the new position it is in, and chose to adapt. It now has two trunks growing out of the original trunk. They have grown strong and tall and actually, the tree now has a much more stable and solid base than it originally started out with. The base and original trunk, now lying along the ground are covered in beautiful soft moss and bright green sprouting ferns, it has become a haven for these plants and the wildlife that is sustained by them as well as giving rise to not just one, but two new trunks. How incredible is this?!

The tree made a choice. It may not have sat there and had an in depth discussion with itself about the pros and cons of starting over in it’s new circumstance but perhaps this aided in it’s decision and ability to adapt and carry on? Can we apply this message from the tree to our own lives? Maybe if our minds did not come into things so much we would go with our intuition and instinct when a storm knocks us down and choose to look at the damage, fix what we can and adapt ourselves.

There will always be storms in life. We may have started with our roots in not the most ideal circumstances. We may have had weak foundations. But does that mean that when the storm comes and knocks us over we should just give up? No. Unless we are dead, we have a choice. We can adapt and change and learn to live and grow in a different direction from the one we started with, who knows, like the tree it may even mean that we can be stronger in our foundations, support others and grow within ourselves more then we had ever imagined.