You know that old saying, “As you sow, so you reap”? We heard it from our parents, our teachers, maybe even from a particularly wise colony aunty. But we usually think of it in terms of karma or hard work. The truth is, it’s a brilliant, simple blueprint for our minds.
Think about it. If you want a beautiful garden, what do you do? You don’t just throw a random assortment of seeds onto the soil and pray. You have a vision. You decide, “Okay, here’s where the bright yellow marigolds will go. Next to them, a row of fiery red roses.” You carefully select each sapling, each tiny seed, knowing some will take longer to bloom than others. You water them, you lovingly weed out the random grass and thorns that try to sneak in. It’s a conscious, deliberate act of creation.
Now, imagine if you let the whole neighborhood—the milkman, the guy who sells bhindi from his cart, your distant cousin from Canada—just come and toss whatever seeds they have into your plot. One throws a sunflower seed, another a cactus, someone else a weed from their own messy yard. Would you ever expect that chaos to turn into a beautiful garden? No, right? It would just be a tangled, messy jungle. Unpleasant to look at. Definitely not a place you’d want to sit and have your evening chai.
Our mind is exactly like that fertile soil.
Back in our parents’ time, the mind was a simpler garden. Not many people were throwing seeds into it. Now? We are living in a seed bombardment. Every notification, every reel, every angry comment section is a tiny, highly-caffeinated seed being thrown into your mental garden. We’re consuming a constant, relentless stream of useless, stimulating, adrenaline-pumping content without even realizing it. Our mental soil, which is meant to grow beautiful, peaceful thoughts, is becoming a dumping ground.
The worst part? In the case of a real garden, everyone can see the mess and tell you, “Dude, that looks horrible.” But the garden in your head? Only you have to live in it. You are the sole inhabitant of this chaotic jungle you’ve let others create.
So, here’s the thought.
We need to become ruthless gardeners. We need to be like that grumpy uncle who stands at the gate of his rose garden with a stick. We need to stand guard.
Start by cutting off the supply. Be brutal. Unfollow accounts that make you feel inadequate. Mute WhatsApp groups that are just endless cycles of negativity. Treat every thought, every piece of information, as a seed. Do you want this seed to grow? Will it turn into something beautiful, or will it just become a weed that chokes everything else?
Block the junk. Choose the books, the podcasts, the conversations that plant calm, thoughtful seeds. Take a few months of conscious planting, of careful weeding, of creating a distraction-free space. You’ll be amazed at how quickly the garden changes.
It’s like taking your messy, tangled backyard and giving it a spa day. You’re not just living in the garden anymore; you’re living in a beautiful sanctuary that you designed, nurtured, and fought to protect.
And every single day, you get to walk into that peaceful space. The one you created. The one that’s finally, truly, yours.
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