This week has been overwhelming with heat waves and bushfires cooking Australia. For me personally, it's felt like we've missed our chance. What's the point in regenerating an area when there's no guarantee of water in the first place or when it might just burn next year in a bushfire?
I spend half of my week in Melbourne and the other half in Horsham so I get a lot of travelling time to myself just thinking about things. Yesterday morning I was walking through South Yarra at 8am and the temperature was already over thirty degrees. I was just thinking about how the odds are already stacked against us when I spotted a sapling pushing up through the concrete.
It was bright green and leafy against the hot black bitumen. When I looked closer, I could see it had worked so hard to grow that the concrete around it had begun to lift. In the most adverse conditions, this plant had grown and was changing the environment around it.
Seeds can't choose where they fall, and even though a crack in the concrete is not the ideal condition for tree growth, the only option for this seed was to try. Every day this little tree has focussed on growing, and little by little, against all odds, the concrete has given way.
Similarly, we can't choose the period of time we're born into. And it's true that the odds are stacked against us. But we can't change those things; like the tree, our only option is to try.
So be like this little tree. Push against the forces working against us; even if they do feel as strong as concrete.