Don’t fix the flower, always!
Jaimine Vaishnav
Diksha Patil a Mental Health counsellor at a renowned private university, in Mumbai, tells “When you give space to the saplings, they grow. When you water them, they are nurtured. But, when you regulate them more frequently, they will never become a tree with time. That’s why work atmosphere matters!” Her statement, often, in today’s epoch, stands underrated since we’re ‘inured’ to fix the person, not the environment. Speaking of saplings here, Alexander Den Heijer-a well-known public speaker, from the Netherlands, and the author of the best seller “Nothing you don’t already know”, already put it this way: “When a flower doesn’t bloom, you fix the environment in which it grows, not the flower”. And so it is important to think about the environment in which we live and work. Your environment, which includes your friends, colleagues, location, habits, and lifestyle, impacts you far more-for better or for worse-than you realize. You can’t make a significant, lasting change, without altering some elements of your environment. The environment can affect your sense of social support, comfort, and level of stimulation. Writing for Forbes, Amy Blaschka opines, “…there’s a reason why a tree’s leaves change color in fall it’s a visual signal that it’s adapting to its surroundings, prepping for what’s ahead. Imagine if you had the same degree of connectedness to your own career climate. What corrections would you consciously make to optimize your growth and prepare for a successful future? It starts with awareness and acceptance of a simple truth: Your environment always wins!” You’re the average of the 5 people you spend time with. It is very important to reflect on our own choices of bonding, interactions, or the quality of content we read and watch. Mind does not only have a connection with our body, but it intersects with the dimensions and the standards of people we keep around; with the usage of social media applications; and, with the choice of words we speak and listen to. Nay, it’s okay to be selfish about yourself and your mindset and to passionately walk out when the environment is only keeping you stagnant.
This environment can be your home, social groups, social media applications, workplace, or religious spaces. Owing to no explanation to anyone, it’s vital to decide for yourself before the environment takes a huge toll on your life and destiny. In the past, at my work, I was badly addicted to the “Savior complex”-a mental health disorder in which a person feels the need to save other people. And “this person” has a strong tendency to seek people who desperately need help and to assist them, often sacrificing their own needs for these people. Eventually, draining your own energy without feeling valued. As we’re always replaceable, in this melancholy of corporate culture, no matter how ‘good’ you are to your colleagues and “boss”, I realized-a hard way-that it is not always my business to fix the people around me. The giver should know their limits because the taker does not know any.