The Gardener

A gardener envisioned a beautiful garden. He seeded it with all manner of daisies, tulips, and roses. He watered and nourished the soil. The flowers all faced up toward his sunlight, absorbing its rays into their petals. All they saw was the face of the gardener. They grew colorfully, abundantly and multiplied. The gardener was pleased.

Eventually though, the flowers began to look sideways and notice things about themselves and each other. The tulips enjoyed the fullness of their petals, mocked the flimsy ones of the daisies and envied the silky ones of the roses. The daisies saw that they were more numerous and plain than the roses or the tulips, and were uncomfortable around them. The roses were burdened with prickly thorns that the tulips were not, but more impressed with their own bold colors.

Water and fertilizer continued in unending provision from the gardener. Occasionally, he plucked a flower for his own use. The flowers allowed this to disturb them, and demanded explanation.

"Flowers are plucked by our loving gardener because of our evil deeds!" cried the roses.
"Flowers are plucked by the gardener because we fail to produce enough pollen!" countered the tulips.
"Flowers are plucked by random forces. There is no gardener!" insisted the daisies.

The flowers, already distracted by each others' differences, were dismayed with each others' beliefs. The daisies were pressured to become tulips, and tulips to become roses. The roses sliced at the stems of the other flowers with their thorns, and the daisies used their numbers to try to block fertilizer from reaching the roses and tulips. They spent less time drinking water and drawing nutrients from the earth. Their colors began to fade and their petals to wilt. They were so wrapped up in their own shadows that they almost never looked up at the gardener. The gardener was displeased.

In time, the flowers saw each other not as good and bad, but instead as tattered and drooping with vast potential as a garden. They accepted that, regardless of each others' characteristics and beliefs, they were most vibrant when they simply looked up for the sun as long as they lived. And so they did, and were. And the gardener's vision came to be.