The Seed Chooses its Gardener

Eight years ago this week, I stumbled onto the idea of the GÜD Life — a seed I’d been unknowingly walking over long before my boys were ever born.

The first physical call to action showed up a couple weeks later — 1/1/19… artwork.

Simple, practical, accomplishable.

Except it wasn’t.

The man sat behind his large table, watching my every move.

His wife hired me — he didn’t.

He was a begrudging man, the kind who used to do this work himself but the universe removed this ability, and he couldn’t anymore.

So his time became his supervision.

And there I was, wrestling a piece that was dimensionally wrong at every point, with him quietly judging from the other side of the room.

The only sound in the whole place was that big-ass clock behind him.

Tick. Tock.

Felt like taking a high-school test — I should’ve been doing the math, but the clock kept stealing my attention.

Ticktock into the future…

Almost eight years past that moment, I’m farther than I ever imagined.

Feels like watching a domino chain that never stops — one hesitant Yes tipping into the next because the first one dared to fall.

Always around this time of year, I drift back to the beginning…

to that first job turning into thousands.

To the confidence that grew under pressure.

To all the things I didn’t know how to do, yet somehow performed like I’d done them forever.

Faking the moment.

Dancing through the struggle.

Half-cocked to say No, but catching the heartbeat inside the seed of opportunity.

The tricky part?

Most seeds don’t even look like seeds.

And the older you get, the more complacency convinces you they’re weeds, interruptions, or someone else’s problem.

Opportunity starts speaking a language you have to relearn.

Leaning into those early moments — that’s what’s given this GÜD Life its perspective.

Its layers.

Its possibility.

Now that everything is easier — because repetition breeds competence — the only seeds that still make me uncomfortable are the deeper-rooted ones.

The ones I instinctively want to say No to…

but have learned to pause and consider:

Maybe… Yes.

Be careful — like the seasons, your next chapter might be waiting on the far side of something that scares you.

And the real loss isn’t “not being able to do it someday”…

it’s never knowing who you could’ve become if you’d simply leaned in.

The seed chooses its gardener.