Choosing to Call a Dandelion a Flower

I looked out my window to see an abundance of yellow blooms. Dandelions. They are considered a pesky nuisance.

I did something today that was out of character for me; I went outside and picked them. As I gathered the yellow weed and reminisce on blowing the fuzzy white seeds and watching them flutter away this random thought popped into my head: "What if we chose to call a Dandelion a flower?"

When I was a kid I picked Dandelions by the bunches and I loved giving them to my Mom. But one day someone told me that they were a gross weed  and I stopped picking them and never proudly handed them to my Mom again.

I think that's sometimes how our lives go. 

As kids we are unstoppable - no dream is too big and Dandelions are the most beautiful flowers. Then one day life gets real, we grow up, we put our flower picking days behind us. Someone says something that makes us stop dreaming. Our childhood curiosity gets boxed up and put in the attic. We feel let down and stupid for dreaming. We promise ourselves that we will never be so naive to think a Dandelion is a flower again. 

Somewhere along the line someone told you it wasn't a good idea to pursue art. Someone told you not to get your Phd. Someone told you to keep music as a hobby and to pursue something you could actually make a living at.  Someone told you not to go for your dream. Maybe that someone was you. 

So we muffel our creativity, we hide our unique talents, we mow over them and spray them with weed killer. The very thing we used to be proud of - our handful of yellow flowers- becomes the very thing we try to destroy. But here's the thing, God puts dreams in our hearts, they are meant to be there - they are not weeds. My neighbor once told me that the actual definition of a weed is "A plant out of place." So technically the only way a Dandelion is a weed is if it's growing in a place it was not intended to grow, in the same way the only reason you should uproot a dream is if it's not one God put it in your heart.

I want you to look deeper than what everyone else sees, I want you to find beauty in what the world decided was a weed - when you do you're giving yourself permission to climb the attic ladder and reclaim your box of dreams. 

Did you know that Dandelions used to be world famous for their beauty?

"Only in the twentieth century did humans decide that the dandelion was a weed. Before the invention of lawns, the golden blossoms and lion-toothed leaves were more likely to be praised as a bounty of food, medicine and magic. Gardeners used to weed out the grass to make room for the dandelions." source

Make room for your dreams, pull out the grass if you have to, celebrate what makes you you.

Go pick some Dandelions.

Keep shining,

Carley