I look at the midday sun, light beaming through the kitchen window.
My cup was inches from aging hands. I poured a slug of condensed milk, though I shouldn’t, since diabetes runs in the family, and the older I get, the more I feel like the sweet monster is going to pop out at any moment.
But the condensed milk was a good sweetener for my bitter soul this morning.
I’d been stewing away about feeling like a failure, sinking deeper into the lost realm of the unsuccessful spectators. I felt hopelessness taking up residence.
It took me 36 years and triple the amount of trial and error to realize these surges tend to find us mostly in times of financial crisis.
Despair rarely visits when you’re standing on your wallet. And when it does, at least you have one less problem to worry about.
People will say, “That’s not good. You are putting too much value on monetary things.”
I agree.
But I also would cheekily question:
What would happen if you missed your car payment?
What if you are unable to pay the mortgage?
How about if you didn’t have enough to pay the gas or the electric bill or the water bill, or the internet bill?
Are these situations classified as putting a value on monetary things, or are they necessities?
The Man Who Planted Beauty
But then I remembered something from my travels in Colombia that changed everything.
I was sitting in a park three blocks from my Airbnb when I saw him, a homeless man with tattered pants and a house backpack containing his life’s worth.
He was crouched by my favorite big tree at the edge of the park, where he and other nomads would sleep.
I watched as he took an empty white bucket, dug dirt with a single stick, and then, with loving hands, potted a small plant.
I don’t know where he got that plant from, but whatever the beautiful specimen was, he was replanting it with pure admiration for nature.
Here was a man who, by society’s standards, had failed at everything. No home, no money, no security.
Yet in that moment, he was serving something greater than himself.
He was creating beauty.
He was nurturing life.
He was finding purpose in the smallest act of care.
During my travels, I’d seen so many homeless people that it made me profoundly grateful. I’d seen them in the States — rode with them on the Manhattan subway, seen seas of homeless tent communities under the bridge in NOLA, walked past them in Winston-Salem, North Carolina.
Closer to home in Jamaica, it’s common to see homeless people we call “mad men,” digging through garbage, looking exactly how life has handled them.
But this man planting that flower showed me something different. These unkempt, unsheltered people weren’t just surviving; they were still contributing. Still finding moments of joy. Still serving nature, beauty, life itself.
I realized they were richer than we clothed, fed, and housed ones in one crucial way: they were wealthy in freedom.
Can you imagine not having the burdens of society weighing you down? No car notes, light bills, gas, water, or petrol to worry about.
Their concerns were focused on what truly matters: somewhere to sleep, clothes on their back, food, and safety.
They are the untouchables, powerful in their simplicity, and you won’t mess with them, and they won’t mess with you.
There are stories of famous cricketers, artists, recording artists, and brilliant scientific minds who are now among them, not because they failed as humans, but because life took unexpected turns.
We are all humans. We are all imperfect, and shit happens.
The Light Bulb Moment
As I stirred my coffee back in my sister’s kitchen, contemplating my next moves, I started feeling those familiar pangs of anxiety about returning home. The same feelings of failure and loss, fear creeping in and then the light bulb went off.
That homeless man didn’t see himself as a failure when he planted that flower. He saw an opportunity to serve, to create, to contribute something beautiful to the world.
He was finding purpose in the moment he had.
If I think I am a failure, then I am. If people think I am a failure, then that’s what people think. I get to choose, not others.
Just like that man with his single stick and empty bucket, I can still serve something greater than my circumstances. I can still create beauty. I can still find purpose, even when everything isn’t where I initially wanted it to be.
Whatever mindset I accept, whatever construct I accept for myself, that is the thing I am fighting against. Time is the master of all in this process of getting things to where you want.
This isn’t the window I initially wanted. It’s not the bed I want to rise from. It’s not even the place I’d like to be, but it still has parts of that soft life dreamt of once.
I realized months ago, during that Colombian tour, I was living a soft life that I prayed for once upon a time.
I was right where I needed to be, just like that man was right where he needed to be to plant that flower.
Final Thought
When I return home, even if my long list of goals isn’t complete, I am only a failure if I think of myself as such. What everybody else thinks is irrelevant.
That homeless man taught me that even in our lowest moments, we can still plant flowers and be grateful. We can still serve beauty. We can still find reasons to be happy in our situation.
So today I accepted: I am not a failure. And when I return home, I’m still not a failure.
I’m pretty awesome, just like that man planting beauty in a Colombian park.
And so are you.
Until next time, keep working towards your dreams and don’t forget to plant a few flowers along the way.