GARDENERS AND PUPPET MASTERS

There are lots of things that happen that I care about. I want them to succeed, and I believe that their outcome will change the world for the better.

There is also, inside me, an acknowledgement that I can do some things really very well, and get a certain enjoyment out of doing them to a high standard.

For some reason though, my tendency is to tie these two thoughts together like a brace of weighted oxen. A thing needs doing, I can do a thing. No-one else is thinking of doing the thing. I should do the thing. I'd enjoy doing the thing. I'd do the thing well. Oh look, I've done the thing.

It's occurred to me that this is exactly how puppet masters get started. Before long, we're literally pulling all the strings, and defining precisely how this thing we love should get done. Then, when other people want to get involved in our passion, we have to somehow prize ourselves away from the strings and teach them how to do it - which is invariably, exactly the way we do it - string, by string.

I've had enough of that.

I'd much rather be a gardener. A gardener knows the secret of background work and fine preparation. Long before the Spring, the gardeners are digging the ground, preparing the soil and getting everything ready. For them, the result is much more than the method - they're focused on what they want to see at the end, rather than what they want to do, and every bit of effort is dedicated to that one outcome.

Then, during the exciting bit (at least I think it's exciting) when everything's growing underground, the gardeners know there's nothing at all they can do to make it happen. It's all down to the sun, the soil, the rain and the air - their only job is to fight off birds pecking the shoots, and tend the ground as often as possible while nature magically does the hard work under the surface.

While the puppet masters are busy getting arm-ache and muted applause, the gardeners have got their feet up, listening to the radio in the shed.

What's even better is that gardening together is much much easier than puppeteering - you can all have a go, and it isn't all specifically down to you. There are loads of different skills, and everyone mucks in, from the youngest to the oldest. A garden project is awesome.

I need to start seeing my projects as gardens - but gardens that anyone can have a go at. All you have to be is ready to hold a spade, to dig when nobody's watching, and to enjoy the summer of fruit and shade together.

That will truly change the world for the better. Plus, there is a secret, hidden delight in it for us while we learn to let go of everything we're striving for - the unbelievable satisfaction it brings, watching something grow. This connects my two original thoughts together, by making it both utterly fulfilling, and, truly rewarding. Who needs applause when you can see things, people, projects, life itself grow in real-time in front of you?

It's just that I think being more of a gardener than a puppet master, is the gentlest, kindest, strongest way forward, and when I'm next stressed, trying to make everything happen by myself, I need to come back here, to remember this... and then to put my strings down, and my feet up.