Apple seed musings

I actually found this on the web one day. There was no author listed. The original author had some great ideas, but lacked the writing ability to bring them to fruition. So, I've decided to 'tweak' it a bit. Call it a colaboration between the unknown author and I.

One day I stopped to think about growing apples. I was munching a delicious, juicy apple and took a big bite. As a result, I felt an apple seed on my tongue. I spat it into my hand, with the intention of throwing it away. Instead, I looked at the apple seed— really looked. It was a very dark brown, almost black. Its shape reminded me of a candle flame— a little, dark brown candle flame….


I realized that I was holding an apple tree in the palm of my hand. A tiny seed with the potential to become a beautiful tree—a tree that could produce thousands of apples in its lifetime. Thousands of apples, each containing several seeds, each capable of growing a new tree which could again produce thousands of apples. Why, then, was the world not filled with apple trees?

It’s a rule of nature that only a few of these seeds grow. Most never do or are destroyed early on in their growth.

It came to my mind that it’s quite often the same with people’s dreams. Wonderful ideas come to our minds but they die too soon—we don’t tend to the little saplings, we don’t protect them as we should. Then, one day, we wonder what happened to our dreams—why did they never come true?

I put the apple seed on the table and bent to see the light reflected from this tiny wonder of nature. I wondered how many times an apple grower had to try to get a seed to germinate? How much work did it require?

Maybe it was much the same as our dreams. The seeds of your dreams don’t automatically grow. It can take time and multiple attempts; like a hundred job applications before you get that great job. You might send a manuscript out two hundreds times before it’s accepted. You might meet dozens of people before you find a true friend.

Even so, if you keep sowing the seeds of your dreams sooner or later you will succeed. Afterward, others might comment on how lucky you are to have been successful when, in fact, you probably failed more often than you want to remember. But you were good at failing—you learned, you adapted, and then with your new knowledge you tried again. And again. And again. Finally, one day, success was yours.

I picked up the apple seed once more but, instead of throwing it away, I took an empty flower pot, poured some potting soil into it and planted the tiny, flame shaped miracle. Maybe, with a little love, one day it would grow into a proud tree. I’d never know if I didn’t try.