Life Lessons From My Yucca Plant

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Fourteen years ago, I bought a tiny yucca plant. It was a small houseplant. Nothing remarkable about it then. I thought it would look nice in my home.

For a while, everything was fine. Then it started losing its leaves.

I can’t tell you exactly when things started going downhill, but I remember looking at it and wondering whether it was worth keeping. I even considered throwing it away.

To be fair to the poor thing, it didn’t get five-star treatment. I watered it when I remembered, paid it some attention now and then, and mostly expected it to get on with being a plant.

At some point, I decided it deserved better. So I started showing it a little more TLC.

Well. Fourteen years on, that tiny plant is pushing the structural limits of my house.

It’s enormous. The leaves spread out with great confidence, the trunk keeps reaching upward, and the ceiling is starting to feel like a minor inconvenience. It’s turning into a tree. An outdoor tree. Nobody has told it yet that it lives indoors, and I don’t have the heart to.

The irony is not lost on me. I once considered throwing it away because it was struggling, and now I’m wondering what on earth to do with it because it’s thriving. Honestly, you can’t make this shit up.

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I didn’t dislike it back then. I just couldn’t see much promise in what was standing in front of me. A plant with leaves dropping off wasn’t much to look at.

But what I was looking at wasn’t everything it could become. I was judging it by one bad stretch.

We do something similar with ourselves, don’t we? We look at where we are, how we’re coping, what we haven’t achieved, and start drawing conclusions about who we are.

I’m not good at this. I’m not capable of that. Maybe this is just how I am.

I’m guilty of this myself. I’m my own worst critic. I can look at something I’ve done, find the one thing that could have been better, and give that particular detail more attention than it deserves. And the ridiculous thing is, I know better. Yikes!

I know that one disappointing outcome doesn’t define a person’s ability. I know that progress is not always immediately visible. Wonderful knowledge, and very impressive. Now, if only I could remember to apply it consistently to myself, life would be great.

Of course, sometimes the assessment is fair. Not every difficulty hides some extraordinary potential, and not everything we stick with will flourish.

And please, I’m not suggesting we spend fourteen years nurturing every hopeless endeavour in the hope that it eventually reaches the ceiling. Good grief. We’d never get anything done.

But I do wonder how often we mistake where we are right now for what we’re limited to.

My yucca was losing its leaves. That was true. The conclusion that it wasn’t worth keeping was premature. Obviously so, from the looks of things.

What actually changed?

It’s tempting to look at the giant and say it just needed a little love. Hmm, lovely thought. Plants are a bit more demanding than that. Light, water, soil, and general growing conditions play a major role. And, as I later discovered, remembering that you actually own a plant is also helpful. I know. Groundbreaking horticultural knowledge.

OK, OK…jokes aside. It didn’t suddenly develop ambition because I started paying attention. It was always a yucca, with all the potential of a yucca. I just stopped giving it rubbish conditions.

And that made me think about the conditions we find ourselves in. The rooms we grow in.

We talk a great deal about personal growth, don’t we? Work harder. Be more confident. Develop resilience. Believe in yourself. Push through.

But sometimes we’re so busy telling people to grow that we forget to ask what they’re trying to grow in.

Just imagine me telling a plant struggling in poor conditions to develop a more positive attitude.

Come on, yucca. Believe in yourself! You can do this!

Haha, I’m sure it would appreciate the encouragement. Right before dropping another leaf.

Now, before you start raising your brows, I’m not saying that people are houseplants, ok. Are we good? Perfect.

Although, come to think of it, I know a few people who become rather unpleasant when they haven’t had enough sunlight. Myself included. But that’s another conversation.

Of course, people are more complicated. We have histories, responsibilities, relationships, beliefs and choices. Sometimes we flourish when our circumstances change. Sometimes we continue to struggle. And sometimes…you may not want to hear this, but we contribute to the very conditions we’re unhappy with.

Wait. Did I say something? Oh yes, we mustn’t conveniently leave ourselves out of the equation. That would be far too easy. Right?

There’s something else about my yucca that I really admire.

Its elegance, for one thing. The way it carries itself, those leaves spreading out confidently, that trunk reaching upwards as though the ceiling is somebody else’s problem.

And the audacity!

It doesn’t apologise for taking up space. It doesn’t check whether the other plants approve of its ambitions. It doesn’t pull back from the skylight in case the beams think it’s showing off. It’s too busy focusing on growing. There’s an almost magnificent FU attitude about the whole thing.

And I have to say, I’d like a little more of that myself.

Imagine going about your business with that level of confidence, without overanalysing every little thing, no committee meeting in your head to decide whether you’re allowed to do something. But with quiet elegance, a bit of audacity, and the oh, to hell with it kind of mentality.

I mean, I can be quite comfortable in my own skin. I’m introverted, I enjoy my own company, and I don’t feel compelled to contribute to every conversation. But give me a subject I’m interested in, and you may discover that my ability to talk is not as limited as my introversion suggests. Heehee.

However, there are moments when I could certainly borrow some of my yucca’s complete disregard for unnecessary complications.

Although, to be realistic, the yucca doesn’t have to deal with the consequences of its decisions. I do.

And therein lies the problem with taking life advice from a houseplant.

Nobody has ever told it, That yucca is clearly doing too much. What a show-off. The audacity! Well, nobody apart from me. And even then, I have a sneaky suspicion that it will ignore me.

Anyways…back to the actual problem.

Fourteen years ago, I looked at a struggling little plant and wondered whether to keep it or toss it. Today, I look at the same plant and wonder whether my ceiling is going to survive its ambitions. Well, guess who’s having the last laugh now.

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I suppose there’s something to be said for giving things a chance before deciding what they’re capable of becoming.

Although I wouldn’t take that idea too far. Some things aren’t worth holding on to, and knowing when to walk away is every bit as important as knowing when to persevere.

See? Even my life lessons from a plant come with terms and conditions. Oh Madonna, what a life!

I’d love to finish by telling you that I’ve become patient, stopped making premature judgments, and learned to embrace life’s unpredictable possibilities. Although, come to think of it, keeping a plant alive for fourteen years must count as patience of some sort. No? Even if most of that time was spent expecting it to get on with being a plant.

Oh well, one out of three is not bad, is it?

Unfortunately, I still have an enormous yucca and a ceiling that is not getting any higher. At this rate, I wouldn’t put it past it to apply for its own planning permission from the Donegal County Council.

And the worst part?

I no longer give it any special treatment. The guests, however, are usually in awe of its size. Other than that, it gets the same attention as all the other plants in my home, yet it has zero intention of respecting the ceiling.

Once upon a time, I considered throwing it away because it wasn’t growing well. Now I don’t know what to do with it because it won’t stop growing.

Gosh, there’s just no pleasing some people. Or plants.