There’s a saying that floats around from time to time—Bloom where you’re planted.
There’s some truth in it. The soil we’re planted in is the set of conditions we didn’t choose: the family we were born into, the world we arrived in, the circumstances that shaped us long before we had any say. It’s tempting to believe the soil is the whole story—that the misery, anxiety, worry, or sadness we feel is caused entirely by where we happened to land.
But growing anything, humans included, is never about just one variable.
And most of the variables we try to fix or control are the ones we can’t.
We’re born into a world we didn’t make, to parents we didn’t choose, under conditions we didn’t design. Much of the work of therapists, counselors, and wise friends is helping us turn toward the few things we can influence, instead of exhausting ourselves on the ones we can’t.
What we can influence is our capacity—our ability to meet reality as it is, not as we wish it to be.
And that’s where so much misery begins: in the fight with reality.
We all complain about our circumstances—politics, neighbors, taxes, health insurance, the whole list. Complaining is human. But avoiding reality is something else entirely, and it has consequences when we do it long enough. The real question is whether we’re handling reality in a way that fits who we are and who we want to become.
Once we’re willing to meet reality on its own terms, something shifts. We remember that even in difficult soil, we still have the ability to choose
One of the defining features of being human is that we’re aware of options.
We can choose.
But choice is only half the story. The other half is whether we have the capacity to live with the choices we make.
It’s easy to let our attention fill with visions of a better life—wealth, ease, connection, abundance. There’s nothing wrong with wanting those things. But the attention economy is built on convincing us that we should have them, that we’re failing if we don’t, and that the solution is always one purchase, one program, one “life hack” away.
Work matters. Devotion matters. Humans need something to give themselves to. But our attention is stretched across too many domains of self‑improvement, too many promises of transformation. What rarely gets said is the part that actually matters: the conditions under which someone’s life changed. From the outside, it looks like a lightbulb moment. From the inside, it’s usually years of slow, uneven capacity‑building in the soil they happened to have.
Life doesn’t pause for our dreams. It doesn’t wait for us to get ready. It keeps moving, and we either meet it or fight it.
From the hermit’s perspective, the soil is never the enemy. The question is whether we’re cultivating the capacity to live well in the soil we’ve got.
People train for all kinds of things—music, math, sports, science. Some rise to the top of their field. But what they’re working on isn’t their circumstances. It’s themselves: their skill, their attention, their ability to stay with what matters long enough for something to grow.
If we want something for ourselves—some experience we feel missing—it’s our capacity that determines our momentum, not the fantasy of different soil. Changing reality happens only when we change how we think and act within the reality we already have.
So my advice is simple: Notice what fills your field of attention and challenge it.
Challenge it, especially when it whispers that the problem is where you’re planted, or that you’re broken, or that the solution is something you can buy. If the self‑help industry is any indication, there are more “problems” than any of us have lifetimes to solve.
Tend the soil you have.
Grow the capacity you can.
Let the rest fall away.
Until next time—
Take what’s useful. Leave the rest on the porch.